Book contents
- Surrealism
- Cambridge Critical Concepts
- Surrealism
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Surrealism’s Critical Legacy
- Part I Origins: Ideas/Concepts/Interventions
- Part II Developments: Practices/Cultures/Material Forms
- Chapter 7 Surrealist Collections in Paris and Sussex
- Chapter 8 Surrealist Objects
- Chapter 9 Collage
- Chapter 10 Film
- Chapter 11 Photography in Surrealism
- Chapter 12 Surrealist Fashion
- Chapter 13 Surrealist Display Practices
- Part III Applications: Heterodoxies and New Worlds
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 13 - Surrealist Display Practices
from Part II - Developments: Practices/Cultures/Material Forms
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 July 2021
- Surrealism
- Cambridge Critical Concepts
- Surrealism
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Notes on Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Surrealism’s Critical Legacy
- Part I Origins: Ideas/Concepts/Interventions
- Part II Developments: Practices/Cultures/Material Forms
- Chapter 7 Surrealist Collections in Paris and Sussex
- Chapter 8 Surrealist Objects
- Chapter 9 Collage
- Chapter 10 Film
- Chapter 11 Photography in Surrealism
- Chapter 12 Surrealist Fashion
- Chapter 13 Surrealist Display Practices
- Part III Applications: Heterodoxies and New Worlds
- Select Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter examines Surrealist curatorial practice from its emergence in the 1920s until the last group exhibition prior to André Breton’s death in 1966. Rooted in the agitational French and German Dada demonstrations that immediately preceded them, Surrealist exhibitions aimed to transform their viewers through an evolving set of tactics that diverged markedly from normative gallery display practices. The chapter proposes that by recourse initially to the discursive, then to the tactile, and finally through fully immersive environments, these complex and often elaborate installations aimed to cultivate sensual, politicized, and postnational subjects. Eschewing those detached models of modernism that aimed either to privilege abstraction or to maintain medium specificity, the exhibitions curated by the Surrealists over half a century give shape to a coherent curatorial practice that engaged with some of the hallmark discourses and experiences of the twentieth century.
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- Surrealism , pp. 240 - 256Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021