Surrealism through its journals

One hundred years after the publication of the first Manifesto of Surrealism, an excursus on the movement through its magazines

Published on the occasion of on the occasion of the centenary of the publication of the first Manifeste du Surréalisme (15 October 1924), the volume volume intends to reread the parabola of the movement through the study of some of the journals animated by its members, i.e. the collective products that most effectively revealed its interdisciplinary complexity and theoretical strength, but also its contradictions and internal conflicts. If the extraordinary London exhibition Dada and Surrealism Reviewed edited by Dawn Ades back in 1978 focused for the first time on the centrality of periodicals in the overall economy of the movement, Rosalind Krauss does not hesitate to define these publications as "the true surrealist object", works of art in themselves that challenge conventions and disciplinary boundaries in order to mix languages and forms of expression.

The essays collected in this volume reveal the role played by journals as veritable laboratories of Surrealism. In the introduction to the volume Jacques Dürrenmatt explores Paulhan and Éluard's journal Proverbe (1920-21) while Franca Bruera and Elena Galtsova scour Littérature above all in search of the contributions of women. Andrea Zucchinali in his essay traverses the crucial junctures of the periodical La Révolution Surréaliste (the movement's official journal) from 1924 until its closure in 1929. Gianluca Poldi opens his contribution on La Révolution Surréaliste and on other Surrealist journals that hosted the surrealists' reflections on the processes and materials of painting. Arnauld Maillet reconstructs the experimental and pioneering vein of the journal L'âge du cinéma, while Anna Maria Testaverde and Elena Mazzoleni analyze Comœdia very attentive to the international theatrical avant-garde.

The "surreal without surrealism" in the Italy of the Ventennio is the focus of Gabriele Gimmelli's contribution and with Elio Grazioli we move instead to American soil, where there the eclectic journal View. Alessandra Violi documents the Surrealist movement in Great Britain (from the small university magazine Experiment to Mass Observation) and Andrea Zucchinali offers a complete mapping of the journals at the end of the volume.