HERE - National Veterans Art Museum

Surrealism and War Teacher Resource Packet Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by any other manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation. Curator’s Statement: Happy Valentines Day, William Dugan, 1977 Surrealism seeks expression of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation. It is this same “absence of all control exercised by reason” that many combat veterans seek to express after war. There is is a deep historical relationship between veterans and surrealism. The founder of the term surrealism, Guillaume Apollinaire, and the primary surrealist theorist, Andre Breton, were both World War One veterans. Furthermore, veterans’ artwork, which explores and expresses the experience of war, has historically resulted in works that negotiate similar aesthetic and conceptual concerns as surrealism–including exploring unconscious, automatism, disfigured bodies, juxtaposed symbols, found objects, and nonsensical language. Surrealism & War features the artwork of eight veteran artists who were influenced by the surrealist movement or use surrealist processes and concepts. The focal point of this exhibition is the seminal work, The Earth Lies Screaming, by Jim Leedy, a Korean War Veteran who was one of only two Americans invited to participate in the largest surrealist exhibitions ever assembled at the Retretti Art Center, Finland, an exhibition that began with Miro, Dali, and Duchamp, and culminated with several works by Mr. Leedy. Surrealist and War Timeline 1895- Sigmund Freud develops psychoanalysis, a technique that directly influences the theory behind surrealism as it focuses on the impact of the subconscious mind. 1911- In the years before World War I, Giorgio de Chirico founded the scuola metafisica (metaphysical) art movement, which profoundly influenced the surrealists. De Chirico returned to Italy from Paris to join the Italian Army in World War I. image: Giorgio de Chirico, Love Song, 1914 1914- World War I begins 1916 While recuperating from a shrapnel wound in a military hospital, Jacques Vache meets Andre Breton, then a medical student. The two become close friends and continue a correspondence after Vache's return to the front lines. 1918- World War I ends 1919- Jacques Vache publishes Lettres de Guerre (Letters of War) with Breton shortly before his death. Breton refers to Vache as one of the greatest influences in the development of the Surrealist movement. images: Lettres de Guerre, Jacques Vache, 1919 1922- Mussolini marches on Rome 1922 Breton begins using the term “Surrealism” to define the group of writers experimenting with automatic writing. The group now included Paul Éluard, Benjamin Péret, Man Ray, Jacques Baron, René Crevel, Robert Desnos, Georges Limbour, Roger Vitrac, and Joseph Delteil—organized under Breton and pulled away from the influence of Tristan Tzara and the Dadaists. 1923 Artists Andre Masson and Yves Tanguy join the Surrealists. Masson experiments with automatic drawings. 1923- Germany suffers a period of hyperinflation and the German mark becomes worthless. Many Germans are desperate and ready to support extremists such as Nazism or communism. 1924 Breton publishes the First Manifesto of Surrealism, along with his collection of automatic writing, Soluble Fish. image: Cover of the first Surrealist Manifesto 1925- The Surrealists present their first group art exhibit at Galerie Pierre in Paris and begin to recognize the work of visual artists including Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Joan Miro and Man Ray as a part of the surrealist movement. other artists included Francis Picabia and Marcel Duchamp whom never officially joined the group. 1925- Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf is published. 1929- The U.S. Stock Market crashes, beginning the Great Depression. 1930--Rene Magritte paints the prototype for The Externally Obvious , his first contribution as a participant in the surrealist movement (see image at left). Magritte creates art that is a mix of visual automatism like that of Miro and the new developing form of Illusionistic Surrealism like Salvador Dali and Yves Tanguy. Image: Portrait of Andrew Breton by Man Ray, 1930 1931 Countless surrealist objects are created expanding the artist reach of Surrealism to include sculpture. The Surrealists join the Association des Ecrivains et Artistes Revolutionnaires (The Association of Revolutionary Writers and Artists). 1932- Scientists Split the Atom- the first step towards atomic warfare. - Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany. -The first Nazi concentration camp is established. -Assassination attempt on Franklin D. Roosevelt (the President of the United States). 1936 Joseph Cornell, influenced by the surrealists but not an official member, debuted the film Rose Hobart and continues to make assembled collages and found object sculptures. 1936- The New Deal by President Roosevelt employs artists across the U.S. -The Spanish Civil War begins 1939- WWII begins 1940 Germany invades France, causing many of the Surrealists to spread out throughout Europe or flee to the United States. Some remain in France fighting for the resistance. -The movement finds renewal in the U.S. at Peggy Guggenheim's gallery, Art of This Century, and the Julien Levy Gallery. -Breton organized the fourth International Surrealist Exhibition in Mexico City, which included the Mexicans Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, although neither artist officially joined the movement. 1941- The Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. The U.S. enters WWII. 1942 An international Surrealist exhibition is held in New York. Other artists directly influenced by the Surrealists in New York include Robert Motherwell, William Baziotes, Alexander Calder, and Frederick Kiesler who join the exiled Surrealists to escape the war in Europe. -Art by Arshile Gorky and Joseph Cornell forms a continuum between Surrealism and Abstract Expressionism. The crisis of war and its aftermath influenced a growing group of artists who are anxiously aware of the darker side of human behavior, irrationality and vulnerability. image: Joseph Cornell and his shadow box sculptures, influenced by Surrealism 1943- Italy joins the Allied Forces in WWII 1944- D-Day 1945- WWII ends 1946- Breton returns to Paris. 1947 Breton protests a speech and performance by Tristan Tzara who heavily criticizes Surrealism. 1949- NATO established -Soviet Union develops an atomic bomb 1950- Korean War begins image: Atomic Skull, Jim Leedy, 2002 1953- Yves Tanguy is expelled from the Surrealists. 1954- Max Ernst is awarded the Grand Prix at the Venice Biennale and is expelled subsequently from the group. 1961- Bay of Pigs Invasion Berlin Wall is built 1963- John F Kennedy is assassinated -Martin Luther King, Jr. gives “I Have a Dream” speech 1965- U.S. sends troops to Vietnam image: Dressed to Kill, Joe Fornelli, 1965 1966 Breton dies. Surrealism, as an organized movement, ends with his passing. 1966- Mao Zedong launches the Cultural Revolution -Mass protests in the U.S. against the draft 1968- My Lai massacre and Tet Offensive in Vietnam 1973- U.S. pulls out of Vietnam -President Richard Nixon resigns 1979- Iran takes Americans hostage in Tehran 1981-Waldemar Fydrych creates the Orange Alternative—an underground protest movement which was started in Poland that used surrealist symbolism and terminology in their large scale happenings in response to communism. 1986- Iran-Contra Affair unfolds -U.S. bombs Libya 1989- Berlin Wall falls -Chinese students massacred by Chinese police during protests in Tiananmen Square 1990- Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait 1991- Collapse of the Soviet Union -Operation Desert Storm image: Cups, Ehren Tool, 1990s-2000s- Postmodern and pop culture cites surrealism as an early influence on contemporary art. 2001- September 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. -George W. Bush declares a Global War on Terror 2003- Iraq War 2008 The original Surrealist Manifesto by Breton is auctioned off in Paris, selling, along with several other documents, for 3.2 million Euros (more than 5 million dollars). The work is now displayed in the privately-owned Museum of Letters and Manuscripts in Paris. 2014- Surrealism and War opens at the National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago. image Prayer Paper, Christopher Arendt, 2010 References and Online Resources: http://www.olinda.com/Art/Dada&Surrealism/dadasurrealtime.htm (link to timeline) http://www.mattesonart.com/chronology-of-surrealism-.aspx (Chronology of Surrealism in detail) http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/surr/hd_surr.htm (Metropolitan Museum of Art, history of Art Timelines: Surrealism) http://history1900s.about.com/od/warsconflicts/a/Wars-And-Conflicts.htm (20th century timeline or wars and conflicts) http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/dada/Lettres_de_guerre/index.htm (link to downloadable/viewable copy of Jacques Vache’s Lettres de Guerre, Letters of War, which Breton refrenced as one of his greatest influences twords the development of Surrealist literature) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surrealism "Surrealism is the natural and inevitable product of historical forces; it is not inspired, it is caused; it did not arise from sudden divine illumination, but like every other valuable movement, from a profound clarification of problems historically handed down to us by the culture into which we were born.” Source: Surrealism at this Time and Place. Davies, Hugh Sykes. "No rules exist, and examples are simply life-savers answering the appeals of rules making vain attempts to exist." -Andre Breton Keywords Surrealism Surrealism was a literary and visual arts movement that was established in the early 1920s and emphatically explained in Andre Breton’s Manifestos of Surrealism. The surrealist movement developed out of the Dadai activities during World War I in Paris. By stripping ordinary objects of their normal function, Surrealist artists aimed to expose psychological truth and as a result created abstract images in order to evoke empathy from the viewer. Surrealists relied heavily on the element of the unexpected, and eventually came to represent the alienation many experienced in the wake of a war stricken world. Breton, once defined the simplest Surrealist act as “… going into the street, revolver in hand, and shooting at random into the crowd.” From the 1920s onward, the movement spread around the globe, eventually affecting the visual arts, literature, film,and music, as well as political thought, philosophy, and social theory. Furthermore, the Surrealists pulled from Freud and other psychoanalysts to explore the subconscious with the hope that the creativity deeply buried in someone’s subconscious could be more meaningful to transforming the constraints of the rational mind and systems of oppressive. Automation: Automation is the cornerstone of surrealism, appropriated by the Surrealists from physiology and psychiatry and later applied to techniques of spontaneous writing, drawing and painting. André Breton defined Surrealism, as ‘psychic automatism in its pure state’. This automatism was ‘dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern’. Surrealists formulation of automatism borrowed ideas from the practices of literary and visual art and from dynamic psychiatry, which emphasized the interplay among conscious and unconscious forces in directing behaviour. Source: Jennifer Gibson, Grove Art Online, Oxford University Press 2009 Cabinet of Curiosities: Originating in Renaissance Europe by the wealthy, cabinets of curiosities were meticulously organized collections of objects of the “world theater,” exhibiting art, objects, objects from nature and relics of people and places (sometimes replicated or faked). Museums grew out of these collections, which in turn led to the demise of such practices. This concept was appropriated and revitalized by the Dada and Surrealist artists. Exquisite Corpse: Among Surrealist techniques exploiting the mystique of accident was a kind of collective collage of words or images called the cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse). Based on an old parlor game, it was played by several people, each of whom would write a phrase on a sheet of paper, fold the paper to conceal part of it, and pass it on to the next player for his contribution. The game was adapted to the possibilities of drawing, and even collage, by assigning a section of a body to each player, though the Surrealist principle of metaphoric displacement led to images that only vaguely resembled the human form. Source: "Dada & Surrealist Art," by William S. Rubin Critical Thinking Questions: Surrealism: Surrealism is often described as art connected to both the imagination and the subconscious. ➔ Knowing this, why might artists who have experienced war use the style of surrealism? ➔ What does this decision to use surealism to depict acts of war tell the viewer about the events and memories that were experienced by these veterans? Quote by Andre Breton “From the moment of return to what one calls normal existence we should search with headlights and then undertake resolutely to disinfect that immense and sombre region of of the id where myths swell beyond measure and where at the same time wars are formented. But, you will ask, how can we approach this region? I say that only surrealism has occupied itself with the concrete resolution of this problem, that it has truly put its foot into the same arena and charted landmarks.” In this quote, Breton raises the question of how someone who has lived through war can rid themselves of memories and experiences that affect them to the core of their being, their id. ➔ Why does he think that surrealism is the “only concrete resolution to these problem”? ➔ How does surrealism offer ways in which to deal with and confront the experience of war? ➔ In reference to surrealism, what does he mean by the statements, “put its foot into the same arena” and “charted landmarks”? How does surrealism do these things? David Keefe, Resort Keefe describes his artwork as being about multiple histories simultaneously, exploring and exposing the boundaries between reality and memory. The painting, Resort, combines the memory of Keefe ice fishing as a young boy and serving a tour of combat duty as a marine in Iraq. ➔ What symbols for each history does Keefe use in the paintings? ➔ How are they connected or how are they similar? ➔ Why do you think they were combined in this work of art? Some symbols of memory cross over from one reality to another. Look for examples of this in the painting while considering the following quote by Keefe: “Surrealism is relying on images of real objects, whether they’re distorted or not... You rely on them to decipher your dreams, or whatever is going on in the deep bowels of your mind.” ➔ How have Keefe’s memories become disjointed, distorted or combined in this painting? How does this influence your interpretation of what is going on in his mind and in the artwork? Robynn Murray, Cast 1, 2 and 3 The three body casts on display portray the process of becoming a soldier, serving in a time of war and healing after being wounded in combat. Look closely at the materials used in making the casts. Cast 1 (Indoctrine) uses materials from army training manuals and cadet training manuals owned by Murray. ➔ How do you think training influenced Murray? ➔ Why do you think she wanted to make art about this process of her military service? ➔ What materials were used in Cast 2 (Baghdad)? What
might they symbolize? Cast 3 (Healing) was constructed using paper made out of the uniforms that belonged to Murray and that she wore during her various deployments. She said, “It was like building myself up in my own image again instead of letting the flag or the indoctrination be the mold that I was.” ➔ What symbols for healing are being portrayed in this work of art? ➔ Why do you think using paper made out of her uniforms significant to her process of healing? Ehren Tool “When most people pick up the cup, they’re like, ‘Ah, whatever it’s a cup.’ But some people pick them up and they’re like ,I was in that unit’ or “I ranked that insignia” and it really means something to them. Then it becomes something more than just a cup. Then maybe you can call it art. The thing on its own is dead, it’s nothing, and I’m wasting my time until someone picks it up and gets it.” - Ehren Tool Tool asks the question: “ Which is more surreal, the art or the reality of what the artist sees?” ➔ Looking at the images on the cups: Would you define these images as real, imaginary or something else? How do you know or why do you think so? ➔ How would you answer Tool’s question? ➔ Tool decorates cups with images of war and violence. The use of these icons reveals how abstract war is in his eyes for most of our culture. ➔ What symbols has Tool used to represent the reality he sees around him? ➔ How do you think he feels about these symbols? Why do you think he has chosen them? William Dugan, Guardian “There’s an arrowhead in there that a friend of mine that I had met in Thailand–she was in the Peace Corps–and her mother gave me that arrowhead when I had visited their family one time. And it was like we need to guard those things.”- William Dugan ➔ What objects has Dugan placed together in this work of art? ➔ What do they remind you of? ➔ How are they placed within the sculpture? Why do you think they were arranged this way? Dugan also said: “We all carry tokens with us to strange places for magical protection.” ➔ What do you think the objects in this piece and others by Dugan might symbolize? ➔ Which objects are symbols or home? Of Vietnam? Of other people or places? ➔ Can you think of examples of objects you keep to remind you of important people places or memories? Jim Leedy, The Earth Lies Screaming ➔ What is your first impression of this piece when you look at it? ➔ Why do you think Leedy chose to make the sculpture so large? ➔ What do you see when you move closer to the sculpture rather than standing farther away? “There was a let-up in the war and I went swimming. The water was calm and you could see yourself in it. I jumped in and swam out. I was amazed that I could see my reflection. All of a sudden I saw through my reflection and on the bottom of the lake was rotting bodies, corpses, just hundreds of them. It was a surreal experience I admit. But it was a scary experience. I felt like I was swimming in the rotting bodies. So that had a big impact on me and it was one of the things that I had nightmares about for years after I got out of the army. The making of that wall, and the skull head, emancipated me from my dreams and I never had a bad dream after that. I did not enjoy doing anything with skulls after that. It was surrealism and emancipation from fear and horror.” -Jim Leedy ➔ How does this story change the way you look at or respond to the work? ➔ How do you think the making of this piece helped Leedy recover from this experience? Giuseppe Pellicano Giuseppe Pellicano states that War Pigs is a surreal representation of the behaviors of politicians or people in power. ➔ What symbols did he use to represent these people? ➔ How are these symbols integrated into the sculptures? How do these things influence our understanding of how he felt and the message he wants to share? “I’m in agreement with many artists who feel art is not meant to fix problems, but to make others conscious that they exist...The thing that I wish for civilians to understand is that their choices directly influence the lives of those who choose or chose to serve... They know about whatever snippets get on the news, but they don’t know the whole story. The whole story needs to be shared. From artwork, hopefully that’ll begin that conversation.”- Giuseppe Pellicano ➔ How do you think art can begin conversations about issues like war and the experiences of others? ➔ What questions or conversations would you like to have after seeing this work? Compare and Contrast: The artists on display in Surrealism and War have made the connection between the art they make and art defined as a part of the surrealism movement. Below you will find examples of these influences, visual and historical comparisons to work made by the surrealists, as well as quotes by the artists about their work and art making processes. Image 1: The Face of War (La Cara De La Guerra), Salvador Dali, 1940 Image 2: Arcade Bunker, Richard Yohnka, 1984 The Face of War (La Cara De La Guerra) by Salvador Dali was painted during the brief period that the artist lived in the state of California in the United States and portrays the anguish and heavy emotion felt by Spaniards like Dali who saw their country and people ravaged by the Spanish Civil War (1937-39). “I have internalized the experience of the physical act of war and transformed it into the metaphorical gestures of the human form. The living form becomes a brutalized icon. These figures are the vehicle of my interpretation of the moments in Vietnam that deal with the remoteness, transcendence, and finality of life. They are silent screams, ritual destruction, intoxication, insanity, sorrow, and death. They are images of power, but also represent savage men. They are caught between the image of a soldier dehumanized by war and that of man trapped in a state of raw self-conflict.” - Richard Yohnka “There is the real and there is the dream. You make art somewhere between the reality of being and the reality of becoming.” - Richard Yohnka Image 1: Bicycle Wheel, Marcel Duchamp, 1913 Image 2: Seat for Government Service, Mike Helbing, 1981 Both artworks are examples of what the Surrealists called “ready made” sculptures or art made from found and reassembled objects that symbolize a meaning other than their original purpose. “ In 1913 I had the happy idea to fasten a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool and watch it turn. It was around that time that the word 'Readymade' came to my mind to designate this form of manifestation. A point that I very much want to establish is that the choice of these Readymades was never dictated by an aesthetic delectation. The choice was based on visual indifference—a total absence of good or bad taste—in fact, a complete anesthesia.” -Marcel Duchamp “I arrived in Bien Hoa in January 1969, expecting to get shot when I got off the plane. I saw the departing vets getting on board after a year in country, and I thought, "Oh, s***, will I look like that in a year?" I went to Xei An with the Big Red One Infantry. This place is crazy, and I'm in it: the real and the imagined begin to blend together...in a guard tower, a rocket misses me by a foot and kills somebody else. Luck? Fate? Who cares? Sorry, fella. Keep observing; nobody would believe this; it is a nuthouse run by the inmates. There are pretty lights in the sky at night on the other end of them, somebody is dying. I extended my tour in country to get home sooner; I didn't think I could take the Stateside Army, so I played Russian roulette a little longer, thinking, When I get HOME I'll be free of this madhouse. Home -it's over-a plaster ceiling, lying on a couch...they are still over there, the others. I didn't get killed, so am I a quitter? I watch the movie M*A*S*H and laugh in all the wrong places.”- Michael helbing, from excerpts of interviews Image 1: Hans Arp, Groupe Mediterranean 1941 Image 2: Stan Gillet, Bones, 1983 Hans Arp was a pioneer of abstract art and one of the founders of Dada in Zurich, but he also participated actively in both Surrealism and Constructivism. The sculptures he made beginning in the 1930’s and throughout WWI depicted growth and decay in soft, flowing, forms. These works perfectly combined the minimalist “anti-art” concept from Dada and the art of the subconscious concept from the Surrealists. Stan Gillet served with the US Army in Vietnam as a rifleman from 1969-70. In his artist statement, Gillet describes how Vietnam influenced his art making: “This overriding sense of fear was probably the dominating influence in the art that followed ten years later. Depression, anger, outrage, etc., came and went, but I can still trace the lines of fear…”The Bones" series of sculptures comes from the rice-paddy period of the tour. I recall the smell when I came upon rotting bodies in the fields—the skin and bones. I remember how the bones would project through the flesh: the strength of dead bones, their integrity, their clean dominance over life. Bodies fresh-killed in the rice paddies seemed somehow to support the geography—actually to hold the scene together physically. They were so serene and strangely formal; and very dead. I made these connections after the work was completed; while it was in progress, I could not read the sources.” ➔ What similarities can you identify between these 2 works? ➔ How are they different? ➔ Discuss the smooth, soft curves of Arp’s sculpture vs the dark, hard shapes that dominate Gillet’s work. How do these affect the way they are interpreted? ➔ How do you think the surrealist concept of influence via the subconscious mind was present during the making of these sculptures? “From one war to the other, one may say that it is the passionate quest of liberty which has been the constant motive for the surrealist action” - Andre Breton Image 1: La mal du pays, Rene Magritte, 1941 Image 2: The Meeting of Dark Scout and Winged Boy, David Keefe, 2011 “Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present." - Rene Magritte “ For the past few years, I have been exploring how multiple histories collide in timeless fashions. This concept has become a catalyst for my painting compositions that explore and expose the boundaries between reality and memory, between chronologically lived experiences and simultaneity. Fishing as a young boy and serving a tour of combat duty in Iraq converge inexplicably. The icy platform of Minnesota fuses with the ruin-dotted deserts of the Middle East. Fish become mortars and mortars become fish. A white landscape is thickened with earth tones to provide a sense of terra firma, yet it is also dream-like. These juxtapositions converge in my recent work, creating a visual conversation that can begin to inform the viewer the continuity in life experiences, no matter how different.” - David Keefe Below are examples of automatic drawings and paintings--works developed through the subconscious and allowed to develop with as little deliberate intention as possible. Image 1: The Birth of the World, John Miro, 1925 Image 2: C4 Explosion, Stan Gillet, 1983 A photographic poem from Vietnam: Note to God and Country Green on the outside and black within I stand smiling with a friend but my spirit is betrayed and cursing you is my only prayer. -Stan Gillet Image 3: Automatic Drawing, Andre Masson 1924 Image 4: Getting a Headache in a POW Camp, Theodore Gostas, 1984 “There is no mystery to my art, though some might find it mysterious. I am a war artist, and there is mystery in war, it is only perceived as such by those who have not lived with war. In the pain of war some objects may change form, but they are never out of focus....A prisoner of war may go mad and become a castle-haired mountain of shifting flesh. Things are done this way because my pain has been too intense for any other form of expression, including screaming....” - Theodore Gostas “The mere word ‘freedom’ is the only one that still excites me. I deem it capable of indefinitely sustaining the old human fanaticism. It doubtless satisfies my only legitimate aspiration. Among all the many misfortunes to which we are heir, it is only fair to admit that we are allowed the greatest degree of freedom of thought.” -Andre Breton, Manifeste du Surrealisme. LESSON PLANS Exquisite Corps Exquisite corpse is a collection of words or images that is collectively assembled by different artists and authors. Invented by the French Surrealists in the 1920s, this type of art became a popular parlor game and demonstrates how collaboration reveals new ideas and inspirations. Objectives Students will: • recognize and discuss the work of Surrealist artists and the history of Surrealism • collaborate on detailed exquisite corpse drawings Introduction Look at examples of art from the Surrealism and War exhibition or discuss work seen in a recent visit to the National Veterans Art Museum. Go over the history of the surrealist movement and the purpose of parlor games such as exquisite corpse in relation to the influence of surrealism. Demonstrate procedures for exquisite corpse drawing. Materials • 5.5 x 14” white drawing paper (made by cutting 11x17” paper in half lengthwise) • pencils • fine point permanent black markers • colored pencils or watercolor paints Procedures ➔ Have students each fold a 5.5 x 17" white paper into four equal parts, leaving the paper folded. ➔ Ask them to draw a head of a person or animal in the first section (so that the finished drawing will be vertically positioned), making the drawing fill that section as much as possible. ➔ Students first draw in pencil and then outline the drawings with a permanent black marker. Color can be added with color pencil at this time or later with watercolor paints when the figure is complete. Be sure to remind students to write their names in pencil on each section as they work. ➔ Next, have students refold the drawing so that the head is not visible (bend it back) and pass it to the next person to their left (they will take one from the person on their right). ➔ In the second section, students draw a torso of a person or animal. It is important that students draw the torso and the other sections that follow so that their drawing reaches the top and bottom of the section they are working on. ➔ Students continue in this method, drawing legs in the third section and feet in the last. When the final section is complete, students open the drawing to see the completed figure. ➔ Display the artworks alongside a written explanation of the process or create a learning board about surrealism. Automatic Poetry Exercise Objectives Students will: ● recognize and discuss the work of Surrealist artists and the history of Surrealism. ● participate in automatic writing exercise to experience the surrealist approach to art made from the subconscious and randomness. Introduction The Surrealists believed that automatism (the act of allowing things to happen without thinking or willing them to happen) was a higher form of behavior. For them, it could express the creative force of what they believed was the unconscious in art. Automatism was at the cornerstone of Surrealism. André Breton defined Surrealism in his Manifeste du surréalisme (1924) as “psychic automatism in its pure state.” Automatic writing served as the Surrealists’ first technique for connecting to what they believed to be the unconscious. Materials ● paper ● pen or pencil ● scissors ● glue ● newspapers, magazines, old books that can be cut (all checked for age appropriate content) Procedures ➔ The Dada art movement of “anti-art” that embraced working in conflict with the art trends of the time developed around the same time as the Surrealist movement. Dada artist Tristan Tzara and Surrealist writers like Andre Breton created what they called automatic poetry. After cutting out random words and sections of text from old books, journals and newspapers, the artist would drop the bits of a paper onto the floor and randomly pick them up and arrange them on to ➔
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the paper. The completed collage of words became the automatic poem. Have students cut out words and phrases from the materials provided to them . Encourage them to not look for “just the right thing” but to work quickly, cutting out words that stand out or random lines of text without reading them. (If having difficulty, have the students find a new text to cut out within 5 seconds of the one they cut out previously). Youth can work in small groups or independently. Have students put the words into a pile. Using glue, students will attach phrases and words onto the blank paper provided to them, adding words here or there by hand to help with flow if necessary. Make sure the students have written their name on the back of their work. More than one poem can be made. Poems can be combined with other finished poems. Have students share their work in small groups or with the class.

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