"An Amusing Lack of Logic": Surrealism and Popular Entertainment

17 Pages·2008·3.78 MB·English

The Smithsonian Institution
"An Amusing Lack of Logic": Surrealism and Popular Entertainment
Author(s): Keith L. Eggener
Source: American Art, Vol. 7, No. 4 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 30-45
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian American Art Museum
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"AnA musing Lack of Logic"
Surrealisma nd PopularE ntertainment
Keith L. Eggener During the latter half of the 1930s, for Conde Nast Publications, spoke to a
Surrealism spilled out onto the American luncheon gathering of the Advertising
scene like fluid from a Meret Oppenheim's and Marketing Forum of New York about
fur-lined cup. In 1936, more than fifty the practical uses to be made with the new
thousand people attended the Museum of art form:
Modern Art's "FantasticA rt, Dada,
Surrealism"e xhibition in New York (fig. It can be easily understoodi f we remember
1). The show then moved on to Philadel- that surrealismd ealsp rimarily in the basic
phia, Boston, Milwaukee, San Francisco, appealss o dear to the advertiser'sh eart. It
and other cities. Soon socialites were capitalizesf ear, disgust, wonder,a nd uses
dancing lobster quadrilles at Surrealist the eye-catching,b ewilderingd evicesw hich
costume balls and shopping through the we all know were the basisf or many a sound
pages of Voguea nd at Bonwit Teller's for advertisingc ampaign.1
Schiaparelli shoe-shaped hats. A broader
audience, meanwhile, encountered reams While previous analyses ofAmerica's
of print in popular magazines like Time, initial encounters with Surrealism have
Life, Newsweek, and the American Weekly considered the movement's links to leftist
detailing the movement's players and politics and its fertilizing of the field for
plots. In 1939, thousands of visitors to Abstract Expressionism,2l ittle attention
the New York World's Fair paraded has been paid to the ways in which
through Salvador Dali's "Dream of Surrealismw as first presented to and
Venus" pavilion to watch scantily clad received by American mass audiences or
mermaids-"liquid ladies," the artist to how Surrealism came to be adopted by
called them-frolic and gasp for air in a trendsetters in fashion and entertain-
vast aquarium, replete with cow, piano, ment.3 Surrealism undeniably met its
and typewriters, all made of rubber. share of hostile critics. According to
Advertisers, too, deeply moved by Jeffrey Wechsler, it "had terrible timing.
Surrealism'sl ure, were soon invoking its In the early 1930s, as a foreign movement
themes-dreams, desire, domination-to dealing with apparently irrelevant or
pitch such mundane items as cars and slightly mad subjects, Surrealismw as
cardboard boxes (fig. 2). Even as the an irritation to those with growing
Photographeru nknown,S alvador
Dalis ketchinHg arpoM arxin "Dada, Surrealism"s how was still on perceptions of a national art with mean-
Hollywoodc,a . 1939 MoMA's walls, M. F. Agha, art director ing and dignity." Attacks were generally
31 American Art
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1:??I ~wr
d
.31"
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ably those included in Katherine Dreier's
i~C~u Sociata Anonyme exhibition of modern
.I
European and American art, which
1
opened at the Brooklyn Museum on 18
November 1926. Soon Surrealista rt
could be seen in group and solo shows at
galleries and museums across the United
States; by 1936, Dali, Joan Mir6, Yves
Tanguy, Andre Masson, Pierre Roy,
u!? Giorgio De Chirico, Jean Arp, Max Ernst,
Paul Klee, Rend Magritte, Man Ray, and
i Joseph Cornell had all had one-person
:I"i:.k.i shows. Group exhibitions of Surrealista rt
prior to MoMA's included those at
Hartford's Wadsworth Atheneum (1931),
the Julien Levy Gallery in New York
(1932), the Harvard Society for Contem-
porary Art in Cambridge (1932), the
Springfield Museum of Art in Connecti-
cut (1936), and the Baltimore Museum of
1 Installation view of the "Fantastic xenophobic and defensive, expressing
Art
Art, Dada, Surrealism" exhibition, alarm over the importation of foreign (1936).5
The Museum of Modern Art, 7 decadence into an innocent America, or Most Americans who knew something
December 1936-7 January 1937 about Surrealism, however, got their
they were blas&,c asting Surrealisma s a
information from printed accounts.
historical artifact that every modish
American newspapers and magazines
person had already abandoned years
began discussing Surrealismw ith increas-
before.4Y et many embraced it eagerly.
ing regularity as early as 1925, just one
Whether designed to praise or bury
Surrealism,A merica's initial critical year after the publication of Andrd
Breton's first Manifesto ofSurrealism.6B y
conceptualization of the movement bears
the mid-1930s articles on Surrealista rt
further analysis.
and artists could be found in a broad
One particular and recurring mode
range of illustrated high-circulation
of American discourse in the 1930s played
periodicals, including Time, Life, and
a critical role in Surrealism'sr eception:
Newsweek.
drained of its political content and
reconstituted as entertainment, Surrealism American authors writing in these
publications associated Surrealism almost
was frequently cast as the close cousin
exclusively with the illusionist branch of
of cartoons and popular cinema. Indeed,
the movement, the branch represented by
the rhetorical commingling of Surrealism
and mass market entertainment touched Dali. They noted little aesthetic or
ideological difference between the Surreal-
upon the careerso f two of the period's
ism of the 1920s and that of the 1930s,
most noted artists: a "mouse man"
and few mentioned the movement's
and a "madman"-Walt Disney and
Salvador Dali. automatist or abstract painters apart from
Mir6, who, even so, was best known for
figurative works like The Farm (1921-22,
Surrealism's Arrival National Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C.) and Dog Barking at the Moon
The earliest examples of genuine Surreal- (1926, Philadelphia Museum of Art). The
ist art to be seen in America were prob- most widely discussed and highly praised
32 Fall 1993
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~yIat p*s w ha Gunf~eihosch?oy
?~c12111 THE
gR
at Qcprhefkir~kiro #r~ kA~~uar~(~ d~~~rrthl ~sit,v ~ ~gr~k~w~~r,sotdf~~e f*0h o4 sl ~ PI
2 Surrealist-inspireadd vertisements "Surrealist"a rtists in America before 1934 owners, people with an investment in the
for the AmericanC ontainer
were Giorgio De Chirico and Pierre art, were producing much of the earliest
Corporationa nd GunthersF urs.
Publisheidn FrankC aspers, Roy--neither of them official members of American copy on Surrealism, and during
"Surrealisimn O veralls,S"c ribner's the group, a fact scarcely acknowledged the politically fractious 1930s they may
104 (Augus1t 938) by the American press. After 1934, the have thought it economically prudent to
movement's brightest star on America's cast the movement in relatively non-
The GuntherF ursa d, designed
by Paul Smith of Kenyona nd shores was unquestionably Dali. threatening terms. As New York gallery
Eckhardtw, as the firstS urrealist This literature is also striking for its owner and art promoter Julien Levy later
ad in America.
neglect or ignorance of Surrealism's explained, Surrealism needed to be altered
sources, aims, and thematic content. For if it was to be welcomed and bought by
most American authors, Surrealism did American audiences. Recalling his 1932
not mean revolution, either psychic or exhibition, he wrote:
social. Little mention was made of the
movement's agenda or political sympa- IfBreton had been therea t that time there
thies as described in Breton's manifestos would no doubt have been a more orthodox
of 1924 and 1929 and in his more overtly representationM. anifesto heavy, it would
political statements of the mid-1930s.7 have collapsedo f its own rigidity. I wished
When Americans at this time spoke of to present a paraphrasew hich would offer
Surrealism'sa ttachment to Marx, they Surrealismi n the language of the new world
were usually talking about Groucho or rather than a translationi n the rhetorico f
Harpo. Museum directors and gallery the old.8
33 American Art
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At the time of the show, Levy provided that misunderstandingis in no way an
the press with a typically sanitized indictment ofAmerican life and taste;o n
characterization,c alling Surrealism an art the contraryl am persuadedt hat it is in the
"belonging to the 27th dimension. The nature ofa vindication. What this art has of
artists are trying to objectify the uncon- laughteri n it is the laughtero fan old and
scious. It all seems to have started years cynical world;A merican laughteri s neither
ago with Dr. Freud." Such vagaries may old nor cynical ... The Europeanp reoccu-
have contributed to the confusion of pation with material things and possessions
professional critics with fewer vested has about it the clutching miserlinesso fage;
thisp reoccupationi n America is the child's
delight in a vast accumulation oftoys. The
revolutionaryc ontent ofSurrealism, a
WhenA mericans... mentioned
content that is essentiallyb olshevika nd seeks
Surrealism'sa ttachment to Marx, to cleanseb y destroying,w ill not reach
Americansb ecauset he gulf betweent he
they were usually talking about
teachera nd pupil preventsa nything but a
Grouchoo r Harpo. type ofacademic understanding.T he
propaganda, quitep ossibly indifferenti n
effectivenessin Europe, becomesa musingly
inappropriatea nd unrelatedi n America.
interests. Edward Alden Jewell of the New
York Timesl amented in 1933, "Those Byrne concluded by suggesting that
who understand surrealisme are probably MoMA's exhibition would elicit three
fewer than those who feel competent to types of reaction from the communities it
explain Einstein." Moreover, perhaps visited: "a small measure of esthetic
because few Surrealistw ritings were interest, such as that children possess
translated into English before 1936, few when they are unhampered by accumu-
English-speaking critics knew or cared lated prejudices";t he "thrill of sophistica-
that this odd little band of francophone tion" for an "anxious, cultured fringe"
malcontents had set their sights on who delight in being "in the know"; and
liberating human consciousness from "that most hopeful group, fortunately a
reason and, as Breton put it in his 1924 large one, who will find the whole matter
manifesto, from "aesthetic or moral a sort of art circus, and who curiously
concern."9 enough will have in their amusement a
One intriguing exception to this common ground with the artists them-
general journalistic incomprehension selves. These will laugh it on its way, in
lends insight into how it may have come good American fashion..,. toward
about. On 2 July 1937, the Commonweal oblivion."'0
published a negative review of the MoMA Byrne's description of the third
exhibition. The author, Barry Byrne, reaction is of particular interest. For Byrne
began by noting Surrealism'st hen-current and numerous other American analysts,
modishness in the United States, astutely Surrealism'se ntertainment value far
surmising that this was "in no way outweighed its political aims. While
indicative of understanding or apprecia- Surrealism represented the mental anguish
tion." In Byrne's estimation Surrealism of an old and dissolute Europe, Byrne's
was pessimistic and decadent, already America, pure and innocent as a child, had
passe in Europe and likely to be nothing no part in Surrealism'sb attles and was
more than "an amusing, if a misunder- unlikely to understand or sympathize with
stood guest" here. As he saw it, them. His portrayal of Surrealism-its
34 Fall 1993
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3 S.lvadorD ali, "GrouchoM arx art, politics, and anguish-as somehow favorably. The movement's arrival
as the Shivao f Big Business"a nd laughable, something to watch but not to during the mid-1920s coincided with a
"HarpoM arx,H is Harp and
Some LessF amiliarA ccessories." participate in, seems to associate it with growing critical aversion to Cubism and
Portraidtr awingps,u blisheidn the concurrent vogue for slapstick com- abstract art. Surrealism, at least that
TheatrAer tsM onthl2y3 (October edy, circus freak shows, and other popular branch of it that interested American
1939)
entertainments that presented the pathetic critics, appeared to revive subject matter
or the unusual as amusement. It is not that was more or less identifiable, and for
without significance that Dali's "Dream this it was praised. As a writer for Art
of Venus" pavilion at the 1939 World's News proclaimed in 1936, "Whatever the
Fair was located on the midway beside faults of Surrealism, its quasi-romantic
such attractions as Morris Gest's "Little interest in subject matter and in new
Miracle Town," home of the "World's plastic forms have marked a cathartic turn
Greatest Midget Artists." away from the sterile formalism of
Cubism." Discussing Julien Levy's 1934
Dali exhibition, Henry McBride, art
A Game Anyone Could Play critic for the New YorkS un, predicted
that soon people would be "dashing...
While Surrealistp olitics were variously to the gallery, in order to feast their eyes
ignored, misunderstood, dismissed, or upon, at last, the destruction of this
derided in the United States, Surrealism's cursed Cubism, which has occupied
aesthetic results were often received the public attention too long." Even
35 American Art
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4 Joan Mir6, Carnivalo fHarlequin, Newsweek,w hose reviewer took a dim Surrealism often began by linking it-
1924-25. Oil on canvas,6 6 x 926.2 view of the proceedings at MoMA, had rather superficially in most cases-to
cm (26 x 35 5/8i n.). Albright-Knox to admit that no one came away from these ideas. In 1932 Art Digest described
Art Gallery,B uffalo,N ew York,
the 1936 show unaffected: "There was Surrealism as "the newist [sic] 'ism' in art,
Room of ContemporaryA rt Fund
too much symbolism hitting below the which, apparently is a project into
belt for even the most out-and-out aesthetics of Freudian psychology."
extrovert not to feel some quiver of the Writing for the New YorkerM, argaret
unconscious."" Case Harriman explained that "a Surreal-
Talk of the subconscious and of ist is governed by the Freudian principle
Freudian psychoanalysis was fashionable of licking the tar out of his subconscious
during the 1930s, and attempts to explain by putting down loudly in writing,
36 Fall 1993
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5 George Herriman, Krazy Kat
comic strip, New YorkJ ournal,1 8
May 1919
t * "? s'
r . . "*,: .......P~," ... ..
i/
..... iE
",.P~
painting, or ordinary speech all the things that "Surrealismi s no stranger than a
his subconscious mind tries to frighten normal person's dream.... When you
him with in whispers."12 scribble idly on a telephone pad you are
Freudian-based explanations were setting down your irrational subcon-
sometimes used to make Surrealism seem scious." In similar terms Levy declared,
less ominous, even familiar-a part of "Everyone shares the subconscious.
common, everyday experience. While Everyone can enjoy poetry and everyone
Surrealism might be perplexing to critics can make it." Such populist analyses
like Jewell, it was just as often noted for tended to efface whatever menace or
the accessibility of its imagery and mystery Surrealism might have held for
techniques. In 1936, Henry Luce's American audiences. Its making came to
conservative and decidedly nonthreaten- be represented as a game that anyone
ing new Life magazine assured its readers could play. In 1939, for example, Life
37 American Art
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published several Daliesque poems and share of the country's tight money,
drawings submitted by its bemused producers continually outdid one another,
readers.A nd for those who blushed as contriving ever more titillating and
they doodled, McBride offered the amazing concoctions. As Sklar puts it,
following absolution: "Everythingg oes in "Movies called into question sexual
psychoanalysis. It's all a dream. Do you propriety, social decorum and the institu-
see? It's not something you have done or tions of law and order.... Like the
will do, but, as far as I can make out, it's politicians, they [film producers] recog-
something you have repressed. Therefore nized how much their audience longed to
it's altogether to your credit."'3 be released from its tension, fear and
Writers and museum officials in the
insecurity."'5
1930s repeatedly alluded to Surrealism's
"amusing"a nd "escapist"e lements. In
1931, at the opening of the country's first
group show of Surrealista rt, Wadsworth WhbileS urrealism represented
Atheneum director A. Everett Austin
the mental anguish ofan old
offered an astonishingly offhanded
interpretive strategy: and dissolute Europe, Byrne's
America, pure and innocent as a
We can takep leasure in what we have today
and pride in knowing that we are in child, had no part in Surrealism's
fashion .... Thesep ictures are chic. They battles and was unlikely to
are entertaining. Theya re of the moment.
understand or sympathize
We do not have to take them seriouslyt o
enjoy them. We need not..,. demand that with them.
they be important.M any of them are
humorousa nd we can laugh at them. Some
of them are sinistera nd terrijing, but so are
the tabloids.I t is much mores atisfing For many observers, Surrealist art
aestheticallyt o be amused, to bef rightened suggested similar avenues of diversion.
even, than to be boredb y a pompousa nd Jerome Klein, of the New YorkP ost,
emptya rt.... After all, thep aintings of our categorized Surrealism as a "deliberate
present day must competew ith the movie cult of nonsense and confusion..,. an
thrillera nd the scandal sheet.'4 effort not to understand objective reality
but to escape it." James Thrall Soby, art
Coming at such an early date, Austin's critic and later director of MoMA's
collocation of Surrealism and cinema is Department of Painting and Sculpture,
clear and provocative. Paintings, like discussed the paintings of Yves Tanguy in
movies and tabloids, were now being terms of their "humorous fantasy"a nd
directed at audiences seeking diversion "amusing lack of logic." In a New York
from the distressing realities of economic Timesr eview of 1932, Jewell called Levy's
depression. If Surrealismp ushed the Surrealistg roup show "one of the most
envelope, presenting imagery that was entertaining exhibitions of the season ...
somehow more bizarre, disturbing, an hour of the most captivating diver-
shocking, or amusing than earlier art- sion." Four years later he termed the
work, so did Hollywood. Film historian MoMA "FantasticA rt, Dada, Surrealism"
Robert Sklar notes that during the 1930s exhibition an "opulent circus..,. the most
not even Hollywood was "depression- incredibly mad divertissement the town
proof." In their fierce competition for a has ever seen." "The doors will probably
38 Fall 1993
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