Surrealism at Play

Description

In Surrealism at Play Susan Laxton writes a new history of surrealism in which she traces the centrality of play to the movement and its ongoing legacy. For surrealist artists, play took a consistent role in their aesthetic as they worked in, with, and against a post-World War I world increasingly dominated by technology and functionalism. Whether through exquisite-corpse drawings, Man Ray’s rayographs, or Joan Miró’s visual puns, surrealists became adept at developing techniques and processes designed to guarantee aleatory outcomes. In embracing chance as the means to produce unforeseeable ends, they shifted emphasis from final product to process, challenging the disciplinary structures of industrial modernism. As Laxton demonstrates, play became a primary method through which surrealism refashioned artistic practice, everyday experience, and the nature of subjectivity. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 List of Illustrations......Page 10 Acknowledgments......Page 16 Introduction: A Modern Critical Ludic......Page 18 Chapter 1: Blur......Page 46 Chapter 2: Drift......Page 89 Chapter 3: System......Page 154 Chapter 4: Pun......Page 202 Chapter 5: Postlude......Page 263 Color Plates......Page 289 Notes......Page 306 Bibliography......Page 364 A......Page 384 B......Page 385 C......Page 386 D......Page 387 F......Page 388 H......Page 389 L......Page 390 M......Page 391 P......Page 392 Q......Page 393 S......Page 394 T......Page 395 Z......Page 396