American Surrealist Photography Author(s): Sheryl Conkelton Reviewed work(s): Source: MoMA, No. 16 (Winter - Spring, 1994), pp.

20-22 Published by: The Museum of Modern Art Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4381254 . Accessed: 18/11/2012 00:28
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The Museum of Modern Art is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to MoMA.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.63 on Sun, 18 Nov 2012 00:28:53 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

r\M

ERI|CAI'I .S tUaRx ;E
At

n recent years, Surrealismhas been the focus of renewed scholarly much of it directedtowardredefining investigation, In the midstof these the scope and impactof the movement.' has been less-well efforts, the role of AmericanSurrealism investigated, and the roleof American Surrealist photography has been practically ignored.2 The lack of in-depth research on this topic is due in partto the factthatSurrealism in America never achievedthe impetusor statusof an aestheticmovement. Nevertheless, its dissemination in Americahad sustainedeffect.The exhibitionAmerican Surrealist Photography (openingAprilI4), drawn from the Museum's collection, is organizedas a surveyintendedto stimulateconsideration of the influenceof Surrealism on American

photography from1930 to themid1950s.

In the wake of WorldWarI in Europe,Surrealism was formally foundedas a literary movementin I924 but quicklyextendedto other art forms. Its leaders,among them Andre Breton,LouisAragon, andPaulEluard, in thinkingthatwould intendedto causea revolution ideasand behavior and reorganize the way realidisruptconventional centralmotif was the unconsciousset ty was conceived.Surrealism's freefromall strictures: the rational and the average weredeniedin all aspectsof life-political, social,psychological, sexual.Greatemphasis was placedon the idiosyncratic and anarchistic inventionsof individratherthan consensualsymbolism. uals, on personalinterpretations Photography garnered a significantplace in Surrealist practices, not leastforits abilityto seamlessly combinedisparate subjects andto captureand communicate a senseof the uncannyencounter.

In the United States,whereSurrealism was necessarily an import and lackedthe politicalmotivationsengendered war by a devastating and by the CommunistRevolution,Surrealist ideaswere often borrowedwithout consideration of their politicalunderpinnings. They were used in tandemwith other aestheticinventionsimportedfrom Europe,induding elements of Cubism and Constructivism,in an of avant-garde exploration ideasand formsrather than in strictadherence to any particular aestheticcodes or allegiance to ideology. The disseminationof Surrealist ideas and motifs in the United Statesbeganabout1930 andwas madethroughdirectcontactamong andAmerican. artists,both European Veryfew photographers toured Europe: GeorgePlattLynes,Berenice Abbott,andWalker Evanswere amongthosewho went abroad and becameacquainted with Surrealist artistssuch as Man Rayand PavelTchelitchewin Paris.Much more was the emigrationof Europeanartistsfleeingthe rise of significant Fascism in Europein the 1930s. Man Ray(who returned to the United Statesaftermanyyearsin Paris),MarcelDuchamp,YvesTanguy, KurtSeligmann, and MaxErnsthad all come to the United Statesby I940; the photographers JohnGutmann,AndreKertesz, andVladimir von Telberghad also emigrated artists by that time. Many Surrealist visitedthe UnitedStates, Alberto amongthem HenriCartier-Bresson, Dalf. The presenceof the Surrealist artists Giacometti,and Salvador greadyenhancedthe influenceof theirideas. By the early1940s, Surrealist arthad beenestablished as an important phenomenonin this country,with exhibitionsin museumsand galleries-including The Museum of Modern Art, whose curator

Clarence John Laughlin.TheInsect-Headed Tombstone. 1953. Gelatin-silver print. I35/8 x io7/8".John Parkinson iii Fund.

Helen Levitt.Untitled.ca. I940. Gelatin-silver print. 13Y6 x 97W.Gift of the photographer.

20

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.63 on Sun, 18 Nov 2012 00:28:53 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

HT

BYSHERYL CONKELTON

James Thrall Soby was the first to exhibit a number of Surrealist artists,and theJulienLevyGallery, whichshowcased the workof Surrealistphotographers. Several periodicals commingledEuropean and American Surrealist work;most importantamongthesewereCharles Henri Ford'sView and the magazineVVV editedby the artistDavid Hare. Both magazinesincluded reproductions of photographsby photographers such as Lynes,Man Ray,Clarence John Laughlin, and MayaDeren, as well as articlesaboutphotography. The variousand lively connections among literarycliques, publishing circles, and artisticgroupsallowedfor a broadexchangeof aestheticexperiences and philosophies. The impactof Surrealism on American can easilybe photography seen in the appropriation of Surrealist motifs and techniquesthat madefamiliar subjectsseemstrangeand that expressed a spiritof the ineffable.These included dramaticlighting, the fragmentation of figures,pastiche,and montage,as well as the depictionof objectsin unexpected contextsor in strange juxtapositions. The remotepastor foreigncultureswere often conjuredfrom distinctlyahistorical elements.Mundanedetailswerefocuseduponwith obsession; deformation and decaywerefrequentthemes.Humanfigures weresuggested in the manipulationof mannequins,dolls, and clothing forms in unconventional and bizarre mises-en-scene. Photographers with commercial assignments eagerlymadeuse of avant-garde elementsand portrayedtheir Surrealist friendsin photographsfor literaryand commercialmagazines.Lynes,who knew many Europeanavant-garde writers and artists, utilized dramatic

lightingand Surrealist propsin photographs commissioned fromhim by magazines.Horst P. Horst, who, like Lynes, photographedfor magazines andwasacquainted with a numberof Surrealist artists, createda fashionablefrisson in his photographs with objectstakenout of theirexpectedcontext,such as food items used as costumedetail. The explorationof the individualunconsciousand the recognition of the self, as embodied in Freudiananalysis,were important Surrealist tenets,articulated by both writers andvisualartists. A numberof American photographers recreated imagesfromtheirimaginations in an exploration of their psyches.Laughlinrecreated his own mentalpicturesof an obsessively romanticized South:strangefigures walkedamongantebellumruinsor posed in bizarre tableauxthat he titledwith eccentric captions.Frederick Sommerconstructed collages of strangefound objectsthat had threatening overtones.Deren and ValTelbergcalledupon their knowledgeof film, and used montage techniquesfor theirabilityto layerimageryin emulationof the visual qualityof fragmentary and obscurememories.In differentways, eachphotographer created a partlyconjured, partlyexperienced autoin a personally biography symbolicsynthesis. This qualityof personaland obscuresignificance also imparteda sense of the uncannyto imagesby photographers who workedoutside the studio and who avoidedthe obvious manipulationsof the darkroom.Abbott and Evans were primarilyconcerned with the sophisticated descriptionof the factsof a situation,but both sometimes allowedSurrealist elementsto creepinto their images.Surrealism also affectedtheir way of working;ratherthan seekingsubjects

BereniceAbbott. Portrait of theArtistas a Young Woman. ca. 1930. Gelatin-silver print. I2 'Y6 X IO Yg". Acquired with matchingfundsprovidedby Frances Keechin honorof MonroeWheeler.

Frederick Sommer.ArizonaLandscape. 1943. Gelatin-silver print. 7 5/8 x 9 2A". Gift of the photographer.

21

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.63 on Sun, 18 Nov 2012 00:28:53 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

with both the cameraand the darkroom a Surrealist-influ- rationalexperimentation thatcouldyieldstrikingcompositions,theyaffected thing but is open processes. that does not seek any particular enced awareness Surrealism not only communicated the notion of chanceas valuto what the streetmay haveto offerand to the possibilityof making rendered but also insinuatedthat an encounter Relationships by ableto American photography, and unconsciously. an imageautomatically could pro- could havea logic of its own that could in turn be inventedand capthe cameracould animatestill objects;enigmaticgestures The uncannyimage,irreducible Helen Levittrecognized the uncanny turedby a photograph. and oblique, pose sublimeaspects.Similarly, displayof peo- obtaineda value and was pursuedfor its own sakeas an object that playand in the unselfconscious spectaclein children's held a unique experience.Surrealisminjected a new energy into ple in the street. its incorporationinto American photographywas like MinorWhite andAaronSiskindattemptedto image-making; Photographers theirunconsciousimpulsesby becomingmoreopen and complex, and, while the ideas have long since moved beyond their photograph move- Surrealist of a photograph as an invention bounds,the consciousness almost meditativein their looking. As in the contemporary continuesto inspirephotographers who pursueimages conceptsinformedexpressive of experience ment in Americanpainting,Surrealist abstract and complicateconventionalrationales. From in photography. discovered shapes that test complacency Photographers abstraction automatic transcription of his unconscious in that suggestedsome GarryWinogrand's in ordinaryobjectsand in common landscapes of light and dark, confrontationwith the outer world to Cindy Sherman's aggressive personalsymbolism through their arrangement of sexual Surrealist of self-consciousphilosophies masses.The worldbecamea vehiclefor the rev- explorations weightyand ethereal imagery, with an ness and critiquecontinueto be a forcein Americanphotography. elation of their secretemotionallives;subjectsencountered a pieceof stringbecamea drawing,a open mind yieldedsignificance: Art. colectionTheMuseum ofModern became a shadowy morph that waveredbetween Allphotographs frosted window gesture. benignand threatening i. Many writershave contributedto recentexhibitioncataloguesand books on new interpretaMovement. and theSurmralist art,amongthemWhitneyChadwick( WomenArtists of the chance tionsof Surrealist The willingnessto invent through apprehension FosePhotography and andJaneLivingston(LAmour Boston:Little,Brown,i985), RosalindKrauss has been partof photography since the inven- Surrealism.Washington, D.C.: Corcoran Gallery of Art and New York. Abbeville and the idiosyncratic Berkeley, CA: University of CaliSurrealistArt, Surrealist Press,1985),and SidraStich (AnxiousVisions, tion of fasterfilms and equipmentenabledquickresponse. forniaand New York: AbbevillePress,iggo). of the impactof with a recognition attitudesanimatedthis capability andAmerican Art1931Surrealism seeJeffrey Wechsler, Surrealism Fora discussionof American In the I92oS, priorto Sur- 1947, New Brunswick,NJ: Rutgers University,I977. For the most recent but still cursory the unknowable subjectand its portrayal. see BelindaRathbone,"Fotograffa y surrealismo photography, descriptionof AmericanSurrealist realistinfluences,the dominant aspirationof Americanphotogra- en America,"El surrealism entre Vieqo y NuevoMundo,Las Palmasde Gran Canaria:El Centro in the modernistcompositionsof photographers Atlanticode ArteModerno,1989. pherswas expressed such as Paul Strand, Alfred Stieglitz, and others. Their images, obtained whether depictions of particularsubjectsor abstractions of Curator in theDepartment is an Associate to and Sheryl Conkelton of the camera,all subscribed throughvariousmanipulations Photography, on American Surrealist She organized Photography. were meant to crecelebrated a kind of logic. Depictionsof a subject July5, I994. fromAprili4 through ate a knowledgeof the subject, and abstractions proceededout of viewat theMuseum
2.

Maya Deren. Portrait of Caro janeway

943.

Gelatin-silver print.IO/8 X UN3/". in memoryof CarolJaneway. Gift of JudithMallin-Young

22

This content downloaded by the authorized user from 192.168.52.63 on Sun, 18 Nov 2012 00:28:53 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions