How Surrealism Outlived Everyone
Text by
Sasha Souther, PhD
20 November, 2021
Livingston, USA
Sasha Souther, PhD
20 November, 2021
Livingston, USA
The beginning of the 20th century gave art a burst of multidisciplinary movements that were united by manifestoes which were produced by the ideological leaders of these movements. The industrial revolution and Sigmund Freud's discovery of the unconscious led French writer and poet André Breton into forging the Surrealist manifesto. This text described the movement's agenda which was to unveil the world of dreams in visual art. It may seem that this precise concept was a pure product of its time, but it is obvious the Surrealist influence on some contemporary artists still remains strong.
Here I would like to make an overview of some pieces that demonstrate strategies and approaches typical of surrealist art.
In the beginning, I would like to highlight that Surrealist artists did not live in a bubble. They knew the art tendencies that were developed before them. From Dada they have had inherited collage as technique. But they did with it was they brought the essence of the feeling that several realities can be mixed in one piece. Today we can see this wild mixture among some artists who are our contemporaries, e.g. Elizaveta Moskvina and Masha Neverova.
In the beginning, I would like to highlight that Surrealist artists did not live in a bubble. They knew the art tendencies that were developed before them. From Dada they have had inherited collage as technique. But they did with it was they brought the essence of the feeling that several realities can be mixed in one piece. Today we can see this wild mixture among some artists who are our contemporaries, e.g. Elizaveta Moskvina and Masha Neverova.
Elizaveta Moskvina
Masha Neverova
Architect and artist Elizaveta Moskvina demonstrates this mixture approach in her Untitled mixed media collage. Here the artist made a reference to her beloved René Magritte, who often included the image of a fish in his paintings. Unlike the classic, Moskvina used monochromatic coloring on the top of her piece and added bright jazzy pink at the bottom. The occupation of her imagery character seems to be a mediator that transfers the viewer's eye from one world to another.
In Masha Neverova's painting, I Want to See My Hands the alumni of several Russian contemporary art schools plays with post-digital aesthetics combined with the dream reality. Bright high-key colors of the elements in the foreground of the painting are placed before the low-key background. The upside-down composition of the work connects us with the beginning of the 20th century movement's agenda, but also with some pop-culture shows, such as Stranger Things.
In Masha Neverova's painting, I Want to See My Hands the alumni of several Russian contemporary art schools plays with post-digital aesthetics combined with the dream reality. Bright high-key colors of the elements in the foreground of the painting are placed before the low-key background. The upside-down composition of the work connects us with the beginning of the 20th century movement's agenda, but also with some pop-culture shows, such as Stranger Things.
Ya La Lee
Russian-born Ya La Lee includes images of the past in her deconstructed Emptiness painting. Ancient Greek head statues, as symbols of pure beauty according to the history of art. The dissection of the statues may refer to the trauma the model had experienced in the past. Unlike Magritte's Memory, where we also see an antique, but with a tint of blood on it, Lee's painting has adopted some patterns typical to the art of time contemporary to herself: post-digital references and imagery that seems destructive. The artist herself planted a complicated subject that she wants to talk about with her viewers – how adultery affects our lives and what impact it may have in the future. The dissected heads represent the personality cleavage after facing the ugly truth of how your partner may behave.
However, collage and painting were not the only mediums Surrealist artists were interested in, they also adored photography. Today's options that photography gives us could have seemed magical for artists like Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Man Ray and the others. But it is quite interesting, that young artists today, sometimes try to avoid obvious digital editing, so the images they create would seem much more real.
However, collage and painting were not the only mediums Surrealist artists were interested in, they also adored photography. Today's options that photography gives us could have seemed magical for artists like Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Man Ray and the others. But it is quite interesting, that young artists today, sometimes try to avoid obvious digital editing, so the images they create would seem much more real.
Julia Shapovalova
Experimental photographer Julia Shapovalova, as we can see from her oeuvre, is also a huge fan of Magritte's art. In her statement, she says: "I love to create and to be in a state of flow, it starts with curiosity, with the desire to experiment. I sometimes depart from two unrelated objects tied with a surreal association that can break the boundary of convention and take me someplace new". Our focus will be aimed at her piece named The Unconscious Stream. This photograph clearly catches the magrittesque atmosphere Shapovalova loves so much. The picture looks as if it was tinted by dreamy pale tones which makes her approach stronger. Another interesting detail is that the model is placed on the top, so the artist also adds some of Mark Chagall's flying people narrative.
René Magritte had obviously claimed the place of the most popular and quoted Surrealist representatives of all times. His influence on creative people who became interested in the movement is strong due to their recognizable manner of work. But it does not mean that other representatives are not known to today's artists.
René Magritte had obviously claimed the place of the most popular and quoted Surrealist representatives of all times. His influence on creative people who became interested in the movement is strong due to their recognizable manner of work. But it does not mean that other representatives are not known to today's artists.
Elvira Shakirova
Elvira Shakirova likes to depict surreal animals and humans in her drawings. By that, she creates a visual reference to Francis Picabia, who also enjoyed depicting peculiar creatures in his paintings. As we see from Shakirova's Sylph piece where she weaves the dream reality, which playfully blends on the surface of this drawing. The anthropomorphic beast the artist presents us cannot live in our physical reality. With the use of cold coloring, Shakirova transfers it into the dream world where this character may rule.
Iuliia Cheburkova
Surrealistic methods can be traced in Iuliia Cheburkova's art photography. Her piece Metaphysical Field captures the atmosphere similar to Giorgio de Chirico and his renowned metaphysical landscapes. In this picture, the composition is built around its focal point which is a piece of wheat hanging from above in the foreground. The background seems empty, but we, the spectators, understand that it is the gloomy sky that Cheburkova demonstrates us there.
Alex Terex
Another medium that should be mentioned is video. If Sony Portapack had been invented in the late 1920s, then Surrealist artists would have definitely made video one of their main creative interests. Video language allows appeal to the dream reality in numerous ways. The Un Chien Andalou was one of the so not many attempts during those times. Nowadays video content became a well-recognized practice among art professionals. The fact that it has its own classics speaks for itself.
Alex Terex is an emerging video artist who gained architectural and filmmaking professional education. His work is strongly connected with the aesthetics of the illusionary reality, which the artist achieves by reshooting the same video fragment from a TV or a computer screen a number of times. This way he creates a multilayer distance between the spectator and the piece. By that, he not only creates a copy of a copy, of a copy, but he also demonstrates the lack of Walter Benjamin's aura and the pure death of Barthe's author.
Alex Terex is an emerging video artist who gained architectural and filmmaking professional education. His work is strongly connected with the aesthetics of the illusionary reality, which the artist achieves by reshooting the same video fragment from a TV or a computer screen a number of times. This way he creates a multilayer distance between the spectator and the piece. By that, he not only creates a copy of a copy, of a copy, but he also demonstrates the lack of Walter Benjamin's aura and the pure death of Barthe's author.
As you can see from this draft overview, Surrealism is still a popular source of inspiration for today's artists. They tend to reach out for this movement when searching for a competent way to show how phisical and dream worlds can clash with each other and create fascinating art pieces.
Text by
Sasha Souther, PhD
20 November, 2021
Livingston, USA
Sasha Souther, PhD
20 November, 2021
Livingston, USA
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