Friday 17 April 2009

to be continued

Like many others, I got to surrealism thanks to the work of Franklin Rosemont. I first read André Breton in Franklin's invaluable anthology, What is Surrealism?  His introduction to Breton burned with the vividness of surrealism as a living movement. I didn't always agree with Franklin, but that's a mark of a living movement. That so many of us are part of that movement, arguing and collaborating and disputing and creating, is a testimony to his contribution over the years. 

'... surrealism is not an aesthetic doctrine, nor a philosophical system, nor a mere literary or artistic school. It is an unrelenting revolt against a civilisation that reduces all human aspirations to market values, religious impostures, universal boredom and misery'.
Franklin Rosemont (1943-2009)

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