Objects of the Traumatic Surreal (No. 83)

Description

Marking the centenary of Surrealism, this essay explores the radical appropriation and development of surrealist sculptural traditions by post-war German, Austrian, and Swiss women artists: Meret Oppenheim, Eva Wipf, Birgit Jürgenssen, Renate Bertlmann, Ursula (Schultze-Bluhm), Bady Minck and Pipilotti Rist.

Their potent and multiple critiques of patriarchy which, in these national contexts, is closely interwoven with and often represents a continuation of fascism and its historical traumas, demonstrate their differing but interconnected explorations of the potentials of Surrealism for productively negotiating the impacts and legacies of fascism and Nazism in contemporary patriarchy.

Elaborating traditional sculptural devices and techniques like the surrealist object and the use of assemblage, the works assume complex tones and layers of meaning through their aesthetic engagements with fascism’s long influence over the historically shifting sexual, bodily, and domestic politics of womanhood. Utilising surrealism’s ability to challenge conventions and systems of belief through its techniques of evoking the repressed, the unconscious, and the inexpressible, these artists continue surrealist traditions, redefining and reconfiguring the movement in new directions.

Authors: Professor Patricia Allmer, Laurence Sillars

Product details

Softback, staple-bound
32 pages
230 x 170mm
ISBN 978-1-905462-66-7