The Subversive Eye at The Dalí

The Subversive Eye, now on view at The Dalí Museum, is a large exhibition of Surrealist photography from the 1920s and 30s that includes some of history’s most notable artists. It’s curated from the David Raymond Collection which curator Dr. William Jeffett characterizes as emphasizing photographs from history that were printed at the time of their creation.

The exhibition is arranged in to six categories: Transformations, The Enigma of the Ordinary, The Visible Woman, Poetic Objects, Automatic Sculpture, and Urban Mysteries. It flows through the tall ceilings and expansive walls of the gallery. There’s a lot on view, yet it doesn’t feel cramped or claustrophobic. Black walls and dim spotlights give way to patterned wallpaper and bright-pink paint as you walk through. 

Pink walls mimic the self-published artist book by Hans Bellmer, La Poupée, that’s on display. It’s a tiny book with a pink cover and pink pages. Each page has a small, sometimes hand-colored, black-and-white photograph that’s glued to a sheet of paper. The book includes some of the most recognizable Bellmer images reproduced in photography history books—but what’s amazing about them is how unexpectedly tiny they are. Their stature and preciousness is somehow amplified by how delicate they seem.

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In his Coffee with a Curator talk, Dr. Jeffett spoke of how Surrealists used photographic techniques like solarization, lens distortions, collage, and lighting to convey ideas like automatic imagery, interior and exterior worlds, and seeing what had never before been seen. The Subversive Eye includes examples of such Surrealist imagery by well-known artists like Eugène Atget, Brassaï, and Man Ray, but also some lesser-known names like Dora Maar, Marcel G. Lefrancq, and Osamu Shiihara. 

The Subversive Eye begs the question, ‘What constitutes a surreal photograph?’ The photographs in the exhibition are tenuously similar in some oblique way. All the photographs feel surreal, but what makes them surreal? I asked Dr. Jeffett what stylistic differences distinguish Surrealism from Avant-Garde, and if there are any similarities.

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Dr. William Jeffett: First, Surrealism is not a style but a position or attitude towards the world stressing human freedom and the liberation of desire. It is one of several Avant-Garde positions but is a narrower concept, and was a group with members. Avant-Garde is a broader concept suggesting advanced and experimental.

Tom Winchester: In your mind, how does photography’s relation to realism differ from that of traditional media? And how does that difference inform photography’s relation to Surrealism? 

WJ: Traditional media like painting and sculpture were historically rather polished and realistic within the idea of Classicism, or history painting, or representations of religious subjects or mythological subjects. Photography, in a way, posed a challenge to traditional (and academic) painting which was painstaking, as it provided a mechanical result that was relatively spontaneous. This provoked artists to think beyond literal appearances and explore new perspectives like Cubism. The impact of the first War also brought the Surrealists to consider the inner world of mind as well as the exterior world. Photography, with its direct connection to reality, became a tool for Surrealism to rethink what was reality, and they used it to push beyond the obvious conventions of art.

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TW: Hans Bellmer’s doll series, La Poupée, was once referred to as “Variations of the Assemblage of an Articulated Child.” But considering the surrealist approach to poetry, its title probably shouldn’t be taken literally. Is it possible that the use of ‘child’ represents the populace under Nazi rule? How do you interpret the use of the word ‘child’ in its title? 

WJ: I am not sure I have a good explanation of the title for Bellmer's books. He might be thinking about the innocence of childhood in relation to a dark world. What seems to be clear is when he started doing this, he wanted to make something that could not be used for commercial purposes, something he could control, and something that resisted the possibility of it becoming merely aesthetic over time. This he did around the time Hitler came to power and Bellmer soon left Germany. He seems to have succeeded in the idea of making something that could not be manipulated by others.

TW: The Surrealist movement coincided with the advent of cinema. Do you think photography abdicated its responsibility for representing reality once cinema was introduced? Did cinema have a similar effect on photography as photography did on painting? 


WJ: I am not sure about this, but of course photography came first. The Surrealists were interested in both media. They found the scientific objectivity of photography of interest, and by subverting a simple representation of the real (appearances) through such a mechanism, sought to further explore what they thought was a more authentic real: the inner world. It is interesting how they used photography in their own publications to mimic scientific or medical publications. Also they saw in photography that it could capture things human perception was not aware of in the capturing of a moment of time; details our eye cannot catch. Photography also impacted painting in that a new form of realism emerged following the model of photography. Of course, there were other ideas that were explored by Surrealism and by photographers which are laid out in the exhibition.

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TW: In your essay, “Photography at the Service of Surrealism,” in The Subversive Eye catalog, you propose that photography offers what André Breton wrote as the splitting of geometric and poetic personalities. You describe this idea as the “intersection between objectivity and subjectivity.”[1] As such, do you think photography is the most effective medium for the Surrealist style? 

WJ: In many ways, yes. Photography accompanied Surrealism from the very beginning and seems, at least in retrospect, very central to Surrealism, though it only was studied from the late 1970s onwards. Again, Surrealism should not be understood as a style, but an idea of the world. There are many "styles" in Surrealism and dozens of different artists over the decades. But it is worth commenting that Surrealism (in painting) tended to reject Abstraction and Abstract art; it tends towards the figurative but diverges from the literally realistic. It used many means towards its ends (practically any), including making odd objects and novel approaches towards drawing (automatic drawing). Photography as used by Surrealism seems, to me, both anchored in the real and also challenges any simplistic idea of the real. Whereas painting, for example, is much more of a deliberate construction, despite whatever unusual techniques the painters explored.

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The Subversive Eye creates a more complete history of Surrealism in photography. It establishes optical and darkroom techniques, as well as depictive interpretations of the inner world as indicative of Surreal photography. As an exhibition of photography from the 1920s and 30s, its themes suggest a broader consideration of surreal practices since that era. ‘What makes a surreal photograph today?’ The Subversive Eye lays the groundwork for a contemporary consideration based on technique and aesthetics.

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Notes

[1] Dr. William Jeffett, “Photography at the Service of Surrealism,” The Subversive Eye: Surrealist and Experimental Photography from the David Raymond Collection (St Petersburg: Salvador Dalí Museum, Inc., 2024)

Images

[Fig. 1] Brassaï (Gyula Haláz) (French, born in Hungary, 1899–1984), Young Couple Wearing a Two-in-One Suit at the Bal de la Montagne Sainte-Genevieve, c. 1931, Printed 1950s, Gelatin silver print, ferrotyped, 11 1/2 x 9 1/2 inches, Collection of David Raymond, © Estate Brassaï – RMN-Grand Palais

[Fig. 2] Jaroslav Rössler (Czech, 1902–1990), Multiple Exposure of a Woman, Early 1930s, Gelatin silver print, Collection of David Raymond & Kim Manocherian, © 2024 Jaroslav Rössler – heirs

[Fig. 3] Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky) (American, 1890–1976), Self Portrait Distortion, c. 1928-1930, Gelatin silver print, 7 x 9 5/16 inches, Collection of David Raymond, © Man Ray 2015 Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris 2024

[Fig. 4] Henri Cartier-Bresson (French, 1908–2004), Valencia, Spain, 1933, Printed c. 1940s, Gelatin silver print, 7 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches, Collection of David Raymond, © 2024 Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos

[Fig. 5] Gygöry Kepes (Hungarian, 1906–2001), Woman with Guitar, 1939, Gelatin silver print, 14 x 11 inches, Collection of David Raymond, © Estate of György Kepes (Imre Kepes and Juliet Kepes Stone)

[Fig. 6] Umbo (Otto Umbehr) (German, 1902–1980), Mannequins, 1929, Gelatin silver print, 8 3/4 x 11 3/4 inches, Collection of David Raymond, © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

[Fig. 7] Manuel Alvarez Bravo (Mexican, 1902–2002), Optical Parable (Parábola óptica), 1931, Printed c. 1938–1939, Gelatin silver print, 7 1/4 x 8 1/2, inches Collection of David Raymond, © Archivo Manuel Álvarez Bravo, S.C

[Fig. 8] Dora Maar (Henriette Theodora Markovitch) (French, 1907–1997), Portrait of Nusch Eluard, c. 1935, Gelatin silver print, 5 x 7 inches, Collection of David Raymond & Kim Manocherian, © 2024 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris