Key questions

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• What is the connection between surrealism and contemporary art?

• What is the difference between surrealism and contemporary art?

In the article Let's get (Meta)physical; "contemporary Art takes on metaphysical and surrealist ideas", the author mentions. 

‘ Disavowed by some as kitsch, Metaphysical painting and Surrealism eventually fell out of fashion. Others regarded the term “Surrealism” overburdened, with contrasting manifestos and restrictive claims that made the movement fraught with infighting.’(Louise Malcolm. 2021)

In contemporary times, exploring the barriers between the body and animal nature becomes the core, and the mind-body dualism is challenged. In the post-epidemic era, after the blockade, human beings came out of the womb-like newborns and embraced nature again. In the process, unique perspectives are again valued. The line between reality and fantasy blurs.

At the same time, a large number of post-90s art workers have grown up. What followed was this generation's attachment and preference for exaggerated animated images under the influence of cartoons. This generation is called the animation generation. The classic cartoon image is a habitual visual symbol for the post-90s generation. They developed animistic preferences under the influence of cartoons. So the relationship with Surrealism is extraordinarily close and natural.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Artist Tristan Pigott gave his own reasoning "I predominantly paint in this kind of figurative, illusionistic style to counteract the sense of disembodiment brought about by digital technology."

 

What other lessons might Metaphysical painting and Surrealism have for us? “On a political level, a healthy scepticism towards any religious ideal or right-wing extremism,” says McAra.
 

• What's the difference? 

• I think the surrealist tendencies now are very different from those back then. Surrealism was initially mainly influenced by psychoanalysis, which attempted to break the mind-matter dualistic cosmology while emphasizing irrationality and creating images not controlled by consciousness. Surrealism is committed to exploring the transcendental level of human experience, striving to break through the logical and real view of reality, and trying to combine the concept of reality with the experience of instinct, subconsciousness and dream to show an absolute or transcendent reality.

• But with the development of postmodernist philosophy, Deleuze broke down many barriers between subjectivity philosophy and traditional metaphysics. In Anti-Oedipus, the concepts from Freud to Lacan are also pulled into the pluralistic social structure for analysis, and Deleuze returns the analysis of desire to its complete historical context.

 

• Secondly, ‘In the past two years, the fragility of the human body has become tragically clear, but at the same time, the body has been kept at a distance, filtered by technology, disincarnated, rendered almost intangible.’

 

In the Venice Biennale, The milk of Dream takes the title from a book by Leonora Carrington (91917-2022) in which the surrealist artist describes a magical world where life is constantly re-envisioned through the prism of the imagination.'It is a world where everyone can change, be transformed, and become something or someone else; a world set free, brimming with possibilities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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How has the definition of human changed after the pandemic? Where are the boundaries between humans and plants, animals, planets, and other things? ‘The end of the centrality of man, becoming-machine and becoming earth.

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So throughout the Venice Biennale, you can see the escape and deviation of the artist. Female artists' escape and rebellion from the perspective of white men, a low-key celebration of female power, and cross-species hybridization.

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The exhibition consists of many traditional sculptures and paintings. Lots of surreal visual elements. It gives me the feeling that it is an unabashed celebration of imagination and creativity. But I think the true meaning of the Venice Biennale is to give me various experiences, to travel through different spaces, and to let the artist control and lead in a specific field. . This has re-opened my numb pores when facing the artwork on the screen during the pandemic. I seem to be travelling through dream spaces, inspired by energetic artists. This is a journey of empowerment and healing. As its title suggests, in this day and age, perhaps we are all crying babies who are fed with milk and then sleep peacefully.

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‘We are still living under the reign of logic: this, of course, is what I have been driving at. But in this day and age, logical methods apply only to solving problems of secondary interest. The absolute rationalism that is still in vogue allows us to consider only facts relating directly to our experience. Logical ends, on the contrary, escape us. It is pointless to add that experience itself has found itself increasingly circumscribed. It paces back and forth in a cage from which it is more and more difficult to make it emerge. It too leans for support on what is most immediately expedient, and it is protected by the sentinels of common sense. Under the pretence of civilization and progress, we have managed to banish from the mind everything that may rightly or wrongly be termed superstition or fancy; forbidden is any kind of search for truth which is not in conformance with accepted practices. ’（André Breton. 1924. p2)

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Books and resources
 

1. Louise Malcolm. (2021, March 19). Let’s Get (Meta)physical: Contemporary Art takes on Metaphysical and Surrealist Ideas. (Louise Malcolm, Ed.) CoBo Social. From https://www.cobosocial.com/dossiers/contemporary-art-takes-on-metaphysical-and-surrealist-ideas/

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2. La Biennale di Venezia, 2022. 59TH INTERNATIONAL ART EXHIBITION The Milk of Dreams. Venezia: La Biennale di Venezia 2022.

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3. ANDRÉ BRETON, 1924. MANIFESTO OF SURREALISM. Oxford: Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers,
1992.

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