[syndicate] Statement by Argentine Surrealists

[Séamas Cain]

Dear friends,

I received on February 13th the following statement written by the
Argentine Surrealists.	I thought I would forward it to this list.

Regards,

Séamas Cain
http://alazanto.org/seamascain
http://seamascain.writernetwork.com
http://www.mnartists.org/Seamas_Cain

____________________


RESPONSE OF THE SURREALIST GROUP OF RIO DE LA PLATA TO "A DIALOGUE ON
THE IMAGE AND ITS TRANSMUTATIONS":

SURREALISM WITHOUT  WALLS.

We must ask ourselves if the great efforts being made to defend "the
exhibition of the image" (and consequently the image served up within
the framework of an exhibition) are due to concerns of an intellectual
nature, or if there are other interests involved here. We have the
right to ask this question, as we have already seen in Latin America
(Ref. Our text of 2006 Unmistakable Miserabilism Signs: Derrame Group
from Santiago de Chile) where these debates lead to, that routinely,
expound, in the best of cases, "acts of faith" (as so succinctly
defined by Merl Storr), placing themselves above - or leaving on the
margins - the least considerations of the political / social and
cultural context.

In a continent where, as in Africa, exists one of the highest levels
of extreme poverty and inequality in the world, where the infant
mortality rates reach frightening proportions, it's a fact - in
appearance paradoxical - that the paintings most in demand, and
recommended as "investments" are those of the surrealists Roberto
Matta and Wifredo Lam, and likewise those of Frida Kahlo de Rivera…For
the moment no poet is quoted on the stock market, or hardly re-edited.
Curiously Enrique Molina, César Moro or Aimé Césaire have no
emulators. For the rest, those of the supposed time of the "end of the
great discourses" it's an abstract poetry that is produced, a flower
of the air without root or substance. But through one of these marvels
of the "universatility" of the image, for its particular situation in
the Art Market, for its current or previous pathos, painting today -
and especially surrealist painting - is a goldmine. Whatever opinion
one might have over the decision whether or not to "mount an
exhibition", it's impossible to do so these days without taking this
fact into account. We say this because it is never mentioned, and it
is never just a case of "hanging a few pictures".

Of course, just as the "wind from the streets" or the "conditions of
life" almost have the power to shake our very existence, to agitate
our thoughts and direct our actions, so it isn't possible to ignore
the underlying material conditions each time we invoke images of
desire. Indeed they do not exist outwith the culture and society in
which they manifest themselves. But if there is desire ("it is right
to recognise that we have been given an absolute freedom", A. Breton)
there is no doubt that it comes at the price of a rupture, and with
much greater reason, of a victory - however small it may be - that we
obtain over the generally wretched design of  society, never through
conciliatory or compliant gestures.

Do the surrealist exhibitions of today maintain any of the dignity and
spirit which we can recognise in those of the past, such as the
provocation of "dance of the damned" (during that of London in 1937
-which took place by the way, in the context of "unprecedented"
general strikes in France, and at the height of the Spanish
revolution)? Can we see today the same faces of those that were
reflected in the widows of the exhibition "L'Ecart absolu", that took
place in the no. 1 of "L'Archibras", en Paris of April 1967? The
comparisons are painful, and measure the distance of what has been
lost throughout the length of our history. And also demonstrates, if
we pay attention to it, the present situation of los Vasos
Comunicantes (the Communicating Glasses), their relation between the
social and the cultural, between the individual and the collective.

We have had the opportunity acquaint ourselves with the contents of
"El Falso Espejo", (The False Mirror), by our friends of the
Surrealist Group of Madrid, and at first, we must confess, not without
a certain amount of perplexity and confusion. Along with some others,
who have lately come to read it or who have questioned it without even
having done so, it had seemed to us that the radical mistrust they
place in the current use of the image, could be in contradiction  with
the very idea we have of "total freedom", of the omnipotence of
desire. As if, in this area, the slightest gesture of doubt could be
transformed into a "self fulfilling prophecy", such as often occurs in
Science Fiction of the gloomiest outlook. Nothing, except a lobotomy,
can remove in any durable of definitive way, the potential capacity
for freedom from within a human being.

But of course this was not what it was about. And it is a great pity
that the serious warning that the text carries in its deepest sense,
has not yet, or perhaps does not want to be, recognised. Thus, what
condition is the "work of art" and artists reduced to in a world
saturated by "merchandise", and invaded by "products" and "consumers"?
What type of subversive role can surrealism still play, and how can it
avoid its definitive co-option by this system of "values"? We believe,
along with our friends from the Madrid Group, that it is not by means
of a regression to the artistic ideals of the Renaissance, nor by
seeking inspiration through the nebulous conceptions of neo-platonic
academia, nor by the elevation of the artist to some kind of demi god,
not by maintaining him in the dependent slavery of a type of modern
patronage system…No, the miracle will not be produced in this way!

For us, the technical question of the production of the image, of its
optical engineering within the framework of a poetic materialism (is
there anything else or more it can deal with?), is an extremely
serious question, a task that surrealism should undoubtedly take on
board, and is in no way frivolous to pursue - but which should never
be undertaken "in the abstract". Another problem, no less pressing -
but which each one has to resolve within their respective terrain, is
the cultural and political - social nature of their work: if the
system with its infinite stratagems and adaptations of survival, ends
up reclaiming tools that once served as instruments of liberty, and so
enslaving those who employ them, then we must look for all means
possible to put an end to this system - and not by chance, relying on
some "magic formulas" for this process. How can it possibly be done
exclusively by the use of the image? And for another part how can the
system be defeated if its superstructure is not seriously affected, or
seeing itself affected? (1)

When we see the discourses turning endlessly in a vacuum, when we
watch the "blue like an orange" eluardians multiplying into the
stratosphere, the long winded cliches ordered in interminable rows,
this should not lead us into confusion, or simple fascination: what
doubt is there that we find ourselves here in the presence of
ephemeral infra-realism. Created by their own precariousness or by
calculation (for there are also notorious forgers, as we have already
proclaimed), these "productions" reflect - at the very least - a lack
of contact with reality. - And on countless occasions, are simply
defective. (2) The same thing happens with that which tries to be
apolitical (which, as has been said many times, only serves to
disguise the worst servants of the system), the antimaterialism and
the total absence of any critical spirit. But we never thought the day
would arrive when surrealists would brand other surrealists as
"authoritarian", as it suggests a type of behaviour which historically
no surrealist would hesitate to find unacceptable, such as, for
example, shameless compromises with the State (3). A label which seems
to us out of all proportion and utterly misplaces, and is probably
fruit of this conceptual desperation which claims more victims with
each moment, and which still cannot realise its own contradictions, or
its feeble "pacts of friendship or complicity", or justify its
grossest blunders.

But the vicissitudes of the image, in their endless changes and
transformations, play their part here, however much we are told that
we live in times of social "flexibility", which means in the sustained
and ritualistic falsification of all values. However much any degree
of ethical behaviour is branded "out of date", "authoritarian",
"brutal" or "excessive". Neither "Popes" nor "authoritarians", then it
is impossible to speak of a "Surrealist Exhibition" - or of surrealism
in any sense of the words - if it is undertaken in the company of:

"A policeman, a few bon vivants, two or three pimp pen pushers,
several mentally unbalanced persons, a cretin, to whose number no-one
would mind us adding a few sensible, stable, and upright souls who
could be termed energumens: is this not the making of an amusing,
innocuous team, a faithful replica of life, a team of men paid
piecework, winning on points? SHIT."

-André Breton, Second Manifesto of Surrealism.

It is good that from time to time they are unmasked, that they are
shown for what they really are. They also, and nowadays, frequently,
contribute to the discreditation of our exhibitions! And who will do
it? In the present day, given the worldwide dispersion of surrealism,
given that there is no possible mediation capable of arbitration or of
setting itself up within the Centre of the Movement, all and each one
- individuals and groups - should be capable of assuming the
responsibility for themselves.

SURREALIST GROUP OF RIO DE LA PLATA

Mariela ARZADUN, Celia GOURINSKI, Mónica MARCHESKY, Juan Carlos OTAÑO,
Leandro RAMÍREZ, Ñancu RUPAY.

Buenos Aires / Montevideo

January, 2007

(Translated by Oscar McLennan)


  1. It is never redundant or prejudicial to return and consider the
basic of what unites us, what brings us together as a group, in
definition, what hurts us as human beings in the face of the world, in
the face of its shameless impunity. We call ourselves surrealists for
a reason. We do not contribute to the emptying of ideological content
typical of this era. We do not fall into the trap of historical
revisionism, and of belittling the political importance of our acts.
We must contextualise our actions, the sense of which emerges from the
tension between that which we make public and that which we experience
within our dreams, our desires and our discoveries. The image which
emerges from our lives in the face of the harsh reality which
overwhelms us.



  2. To affirm, as does Stephen Clark, in "The Wineglass No Longer",
that "in the language of Surrealism, the values of sacred and profane
tend to do the same", is equivalent to granting a status of
authenticity to "the sacred" as well as "the profane": it implies
dealing with values which are intrinsically inherent to the human
condition. It can be seen as a "transgression of the habitual" with a
trait of "iconoclasm", at the same time as a demonstration of
"imaginative possibility"….But we sustain that this forced opposition
between "the sacred" and "the profane" can only plead in favour of a
formal relativism, and in notions that are completely strange to the
surrealist language. When Péret wrote a daily account of his sexual
experiences, we don't think he believed he was engaging in "profane"
activities; Leiris didn't believe, as Tutmosis at the foot of the
Sphinx, that his dreams annotated in "Afrique Fantome", had the
slightest connection with the "sacred". And it is not just a question
of word games…



     Neither sacred, nor profane, the surrealist experience is about
the human being it their totality, and doesn't belong in the dominion
of conservative values disguised as revolutionary values, and never
should approach life with a spirit ofindifferentiation, which seems to
be one of the predominant signs of our epoch.

(3) The letter which the Madrid Group sent to the Paris Group
("Clearing the Way"), regarding the "Derrame Affair", to the best of
our knowledge was not even answered. Even the less than friendly Señor
Lechuga, friend of the businessman Cecil Touchon, responsible for the
multinational Massurealism, for the Museum of Collage and for other
deplorable enterprises, even he had the courage to defend his "little
shop of horrors"! But from Paris, not a peep.