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Undercover Surrealism

Picasso, Miro, Masson and the Vision of Georges Bataille

Department of English Language and Literature, The National University of Singapore

Ma Shaoling

University of Southern California

This article considers the Undercover Surrealism exhibition curated at London’s Hayward Gallery (from May to July 2006) and reflects on the practices of documentation, archiving and exhibition when the topic of the exhibition, as in this case, is a journal that in its most radical intention was set up to critique the practices of exhibition and documentation. The short and controversial life of Georges Bataille’s Documents unfolds as an often deliberately confusing juxtaposition of images and articles. The exhibition aims to represent both the sometimes incompatible interests of the journal’s collaborators and the public dispute between Bataille and Breton over the aims of Surrealism. The article explores the intentions, risks, and possible effects of the exhibition in the context of Bataille’s own philosophy and his own peculiar part in the publication of Documents, which in its time was a contemporary review of diverse cultural phenomena interspersed with subversive dictionary entries. The article thus raises the question of what happens to the subversive intentions of a project like Documents in the scholarly historicist environment of public exhibition space.

Key Words: art • Bataille • documents • encyclopaedia • ethnography • exhibition • modernism • Surrealism

References

• Ades, D. and Fiona Bradley (2006) ‘Introduction’, pp. 11-16 in D. Ades and S. Baker (eds) Undercover Surrealism: Georges Bataille and DOCUMENTS. Cambridge, MA: MIT .
• Ades, D. and S. Baker (eds) (2006) Undercover Surrealism: Georges Bataille and DOCUMENTS. Cambridge, MA: MIT .
• Baker, S. (2006) ‘Doctrines (The Appearance of Things)’, pp. 34-41 in D. Ades and S. Baker (eds) Undercover Surrealism: Georges Bataille and DOCUMENTS. Cambridge, MA: MIT .
• Bataille, G. (1930) ‘Bouche’ [Mouth], Documents 5.
• Bataille, G. (1970) Oeuvres Complètes I. Premiers Écrits 1922-1940. Paris: Gallimard .
• Bataille, G. (1985) Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939. Allan Stoekl (tr.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota .
• Bataille, G. (1994a) ‘Notes on the Publication of "Un Cadavre"’, pp. 30-33 in Michael Richardson (ed., tr.) The Absence of Myth: Writings on Surrealism. London: Verso .
• Bataille, G. (1994b) ‘Surrealism’, pp. 54-56 in Michael Richardson (ed., tr.) The Absence of Myth: Writings on Surrealism. London: Verso .
• Bois, Y.-A. and R. Krauss (1997) Formless: A User’s Guide. New York: Zone .
• Breton, A. (1969) Manifestos of Surrealism, Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane (tr.). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press .
• Brotchie, Alastair (ed.) et al. (1996) Encyclopædia Acephalica London: Atlas .(Comprising the Critical Dictionary and Related Texts edited by Georges Bataille and the Encyclopædia Da Costa edited by Robert Lebel and Isabelle Waldberg).
• Clifford, J. (1988) The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature and Art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press .

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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Phillips, J. Articles by Shaoling, M. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?