Alyce Mahon, Surrealism and Alchemy: Transform the World!

Part of the series 'Art & Alchemy: Transformation & Contemporary Art' A two day conference across Cambridge and Norwich exploring ideas of alchemy and transformation, and the role of crystals in contemporary artistic practice and theory from Graeco-Roman Egypt to Surrealism and contemporary art.

Discussion 2 This symposium explores the controversial status of Futurist movements in art history, and some of their ‘avant-garde’ practices. Speakers engage with various forms of Futurist art, performance and film, including the use of manifestos and demonstrations. Italian Futurism will be viewed in relation to other radical art practices across Europe. The Futurists’ disdain for traditional values and their pursuit of an ‘art of modern life’ will be explored in relation to prevailing concepts of modernity and ‘avant-garde’ utopias.

Mary-Ann Caws, Manifesting A look at a selection of visual manifestos, in their relation to verbal ones—what sorts of crossover features might we determine (or invent), with our post-event imaginations running high, as in the original big and loud futurist ones? A quick dada/surrealist spin will be put on the whole thing, with additional thoughts after the Venice Biennale sneaking in.Suggested Further Reading:Mary Ann Caws, ed.

Steve Edwards, Martin Gaughan and Gail Day, Plenary 1  This discussion forms part of the study day that explores concepts of avant-gardism, and the ways in which these have been deployed to historicise and interpret twentieth century art.

Dada to Surrealism: Continuity  Speaker: Martin Gaughan, writer and former Head of the History and Theory of Art at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff .This talk traces some of the issues which informed work in the different Dada centres, establishing their origins and concerns, and considering how the relationships between the different moments can be characterized.

Steve Edwards, USSR in Construction  Speaker: Steve Edwards, Research Lecturer in History of Art at The Open University. This talk looks at Russian art from just before World War 1 until the middle of the 1930s, considering the relation between Constructivist art and the politics of the period. In the wake of the 1917 revolution many avant-garde artists identified with the aims of the Bolshevik regime.

Matthew Gale, Ian Christie, Gill Perry and Dawn Ades, Discussion 2  A video recording a discussion from the Tate Modern Surrealism and Film Study Day conference

Ian Christie, 'The marvellous is popular!' Dalí in the context of Hollywood surrealism  Surrealism started as a revolt against the idea of elite avant-gardism, and even if it eventually became a new avant-garde, its adherents maintained an enthusiasm for popular culture, including mainstream and genre cinema, becoming arbiters in this field. This presentation examines two strands in Hollywood cinema to which Dalí, like other Surrealists, was drawn – the carnivalesque and the erotic-romantic – and will also consider the Freudian morality drama, to which he eventually contributed. Further Reading

Elliott King, Dalí, Fonzie, and what 'Late Dalí and Film' can tell us about Late Dalí and Everything Else  Speaker: Elliott King, a specialist in Dalí's post-war art and cosmogony. His first book, Dalí, Surrealism and Cinema (2007), is published by Kamera Books. Critics have often identified Dalí's 1941 rejection of Surrealism in favour of 'classicism' as the 'tipping point' when his work began to decline. His activity with film offers a compelling challenge to that history.

Discussion 1 A video recording of a discussion from the Tate Modern Surrealism and Film Study Day