Surrealism: Inside the Magnetic Fields

by Rosemont, Penelope
3.9 out of 5 Customer Rating
ISBN: 9780872867680
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Overview

A series of personal and historical encounters with surrealism from one of its foremost practitioners in the United States.

"Penelope Rosemont has given us, better than anyone else in the English language, a marvelous, meticulous exploration of the surrealist experience, in all its infinite variety." --Gerome Kamrowski, American Surrealist Painter

One of the hallmarks of Surrealism is the encounter, often by chance, with a key person, place, or object through a trajectory no one could have predicted. Penelope Rosemont draws on a lifetime of such experiences in her collection of essays, Surrealism: Inside the Magnetic Fields. From her youthful forays as a radical-student in Chicago to her pivotal meeting with Andr Breton and the Surrealist Movement in Paris, Rosemont--one of the movement's leading exponents in the United States--documents her unending search for the marvelous and the avant-garde.

Surrealism finds her rubbing shoulders with some of the movement's most important visual artists, such as Man Ray, Leonora Carrington, Mimi Parent, and Toyen; discussing politics and spectacle with Guy Debord; and crossing paths with poet Ted Joans and outsider artist Lee Godie. The book also includes scholarly investigations into American radicals like George Francis Train and Mary MacLane, the myth of the Golden Goose, and Dada precursor Emmy Hennings.

Praise for Surrealism:

"This compelling and well-drawn book lets us see the adventures, inspirations, and relationships that have shaped Penelope Rosemont's art and rebellion."--David Roediger, author of Class, Race, and Marxism

"Anyone seeking to understand contemporary surrealism or the history of surrealism in America and beyond should make their way at once to this book. Penelope Rosemont's remarkable life and legendary body of work lies centrally at the crossroads of surrealism then and now. The broad sampling of essays included here offer a compelling entry point for curious readers and an essential compendium for surrealist practitioners."--Abigail Susik, professor of art history, Willamette University

"In this wide-ranging collection of essays, Penelope Rosemont, long a keeper of surrealism's revolutionary flame, shows how a penetrating look into the past can liberate the future. With humor and passion, Rosemont tells the story both of her own engagement with surrealism and of surrealism's relevance to the struggle for social and psychic transformation. Whether addressed to feminism, anarchism, the black power movement, or visual art and poetry, Rosemont's writing, like surrealism itself, sets fire to everything it touches."--Andrew Joron, author of The Absolute Letter

"The looming centenary of Surrealism will be greeted by a boatload of publications, but few will be as heartfelt, spirited, and teeming with the atmosphere conjured by Penelope Rosemont. Her welcome memoir has a double virtue, as testament to the enduring radiance of Surrealism, and as a memento to the Sixties, revealing a sweetly beating wonderment at the heart of that absurdly maligned decade."--Jed Rasula, author of Destruction Was My Beatrice: Dada and the Unmaking of the Twentieth Century

  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Author: Rosemont, Penelope
  • ISBN: 9780872867680
  • Condition: Used
  • Dimensions: 8.20 x 0.70
  • Number Of Pages: 206
  • Publication Year: 2019

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