Sunday, November 7, 2010

Surrealism

Surrealism: "Pure psychic automatism by which it is intended to express (...)the true function of thought. Thought dictated in the absence of all control exerted by reason and outside aesthetic or moral preoccupations." (Andre Breton)

Presented in 1924 by Andre Breton in the First Surrealist Manifesto.

Class activity: "Exquisite Corpse" practiced by Andre Breton.
Start with a big piece of paper. The first student draws something and folds the paper to conceal most of what they drew, leaving only a few marks visible, and then passes it to the next student. The next student continues to draw from the marks left visible by the previous student and then folds and partly conceals their addition. This process is repeated for every student. At the end you can unfold the paper and present a collaboratively drawn surrealist work.

"I believe in the future resolution of these two states- outwardly so contradictory- which are dream and reality, into a sort of absolute reality, a surreality, so to speak." (Andre Breton)

There is lots of fun surrealist work to explore with students by Salvador Dali and
Rene Magritte.

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