Surrealism at play

Author(s)

    • Laxton, Susan

Bibliographic Information

Surrealism at play

Susan Laxton

(Art history publication initiative)

Duke University Press, 2019

  • : hardcover
  • : pbk

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [331]-350) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Volume

: hardcover ISBN 9781478001966

Description

In Surrealism at Play Susan Laxton writes a new history of surrealism in which she traces the centrality of play to the movement and its ongoing legacy. For surrealist artists, play took a consistent role in their aesthetic as they worked in, with, and against a post-World War I world increasingly dominated by technology and functionalism. Whether through exquisite-corpse drawings, Man Ray’s rayographs, or Joan Miró’s visual puns, surrealists became adept at developing techniques and processes designed to guarantee aleatory outcomes. In embracing chance as the means to produce unforeseeable ends, they shifted emphasis from final product to process, challenging the disciplinary structures of industrial modernism. As Laxton demonstrates, play became a primary method through which surrealism refashioned artistic practice, everyday experience, and the nature of subjectivity.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations  ix Acknowledgments  xv Introduction. A Modern Critical Ludic  1 1. Blur  29 2. Drift  72 3. System  137 4. Pun  185 5. Postlude  246 Notes  273 Bibliography  331 Index  351
Volume

: pbk ISBN 9781478003076

Description

In Surrealism at Play Susan Laxton writes a new history of surrealism in which she traces the centrality of play to the movement and its ongoing legacy. For surrealist artists, play took a consistent role in their aesthetic as they worked in, with, and against a post-World War I world increasingly dominated by technology and functionalism. Whether through exquisite-corpse drawings, Man Ray's rayographs, or Joan Miro's visual puns, surrealists became adept at developing techniques and processes designed to guarantee aleatory outcomes. In embracing chance as the means to produce unforeseeable ends, they shifted emphasis from final product to process, challenging the disciplinary structures of industrial modernism. As Laxton demonstrates, play became a primary method through which surrealism refashioned artistic practice, everyday experience, and the nature of subjectivity.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix Acknowledgments xv Introduction. A Modern Critical Ludic 1 1. Blur 29 2. Drift 72 3. System 137 4. Pun 185 5. Postlude 246 Notes 273 Bibliography 331 Index 351

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