For the 100th anniversary of surrealism, Susik has assembled an extraordinary collection that reinforces the cross-cultural longevity of the movement. Ranging across film studies and the plastic arts, it gathers fresh insights into canonical figures while bringing a range of exciting new voices into the conversation. This is solid historical scholarship that greatly expands on contemporary theoretical debates around the nature and uses of animation writ large.

Andrew V. Uroskie, author of Between the Black and the White Cube: Expanded Cinema in Postwar Art (2014)

Susik’s groundbreaking collection proudly situates animation as the heart of surrealist cinema. It pencils in a fascinating web of links between artistic traditions going far beyond the graphic arts. Unfettered by parochial conceptions of history, these essays embrace a shared pool of inspirations drawn upon by the pioneers of truly fantastic cinema.

Daniel Bird, Friends of Walerian Borowczyk, Paris, France

<i>Surrealism and Animation</i> is a major contribution that boldly expands our understanding of moving image media’s centrality to the ongoing, transnational surrealist enterprise. But across each section it also vitally demonstrates how much surrealism and its interdisciplinary study still have to teach us about the moving image, the diversity of its forms, and its essential role in art practices that affirm life and human liberation as both a political and an aesthetic value.

Jennifer J. Wild, Associate Professor, Cinema and Media Studies, The University of Southern California, USA

Se alle

<i>Surrealism and Animation </i>offers a dynamic exploration of a 'living art form' that has rarely seen the full critical attention that it deserves. Unearthing analogue and digital treasures, the essays in this collection show the myriad ways in which surrealism, craft, philosophy and technology can intersect.

Felicity Gee, Associate Professor of Modernist Literatures and Avant-Garde Studies, University of Exeter, UK

An outstanding collection on the rich relationship between surrealism and animation that truly does justice to the subject’s transnational breadth, the manifold nature of animation, and the various histories and applications of surrealism.

Jonathan Owen, author of Avant-Garde to New Wave: Czechoslovak Cinema, Surrealism and the Sixties (2011)

Drawing up an international panorama (America, Europe, Japan...), these richly illustrated essays explore the formidable world of animated film and its fertile forays into the realm of surrealism, as well as the interest shown by the Surrealists in the phenomenon of the animated image.

Bertrand Schmitt, author of Jan Švankmajer Dimensions of Dialogue (2013)

From Betty Boop to Donald Duck, Tex Avery to Walt Disney, collage animation to Japanese anime, and Claymation to 3D animation, Surrealism and Animation is the first book to identify correspondences between the art of animation and the International Surrealist Movement.

Sharing a deep commitment to a reanimation of everyday life, surrealist artists and animators sought a marvellous, living form of art. Cartoons and trick films by pioneers such as Georges Méliès were influential for Salvador Dalí and André Breton, among others; many other surrealists and their associates such as Max Ernst, Joseph Cornell, Hans Richter, Len Lye, Roland Topor, Jan Švankmajer, and Lawrence Jordan turned to animated cinema and theories of animacy to express their surrealist visions.

Surrealism and Animation is the first book devoted to surrealism’s vivid engagement with the history, theory, and medium of animation on a transnational basis. Featuring seventeen essays by leading and emerging scholars, as well as interviews with contemporary artists Penny Slinger and Jacolby Satterwhite, this collection investigates a shimmering range of topics on animated surrealism, including black humour, queer subjectivities, ecofeminism, Black surrealisms, and more.

Les mer

List of Illustrations

Introduction: Beyond Disorientation’: Surrealism, Animation, and the Hidden World, Abigail Susik (Willamette University, USA)

Part One: Activating Still Life and Materializing Dreams: Surrealism and Animation from the 1920s to Midcentury
Introduction to Part One, Abigail Susik
1. It’s a Bird: Animation, Objective Humour, and the Heart of the Black Star, Krzysztof Fijalkowski (Norwich University of the Arts, UK)
2. Len Lye: Animation, Automatism, and Surrealism, Raymond Spiteri, (Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)
3. Boop-Oop-a-Doop: Betty Boop’s Adventures in Surrealism, Michael Richardson (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)
4. Animation and Animacy in Salvador Dalí’s 1930s Multimedia Projects, Alex Zivkovic (Columbia University, USA)
5. Max Ernst’s Cartoon Modernism: Brentano, Disney and Dream and Revolution, David Hopkins (University of Glasgow, UK)
6. Woe to the sperm whale that fought against a louse! On the Surrealist Reception of Tex Avery in the 1950s, Gavin Parkinson (The Courtauld Institute of Art, UK)

Part Two: Animacy Transforming the World: Postwar Transnational Surrealism and Animation
Introduction to Part Two, Abigail Susik
7. Parker Tyler’s ‘Film as the problem of space control’, Ann Reynolds (University of Texas, USA)
8. Harry Smith and Lawrence Jordan in San Francisco, 1946–64, Jorgelina Orfila and Francisco Ortega (Texas Tech University, USA)
9. Magical Dreams: The Surrealist Animations of Dušan Tomáš Marek in Czechoslovakia and Australia, Cheri Donaldson (University of South Australia, Australia)
10. Animating Death and Deadening Life in 1964: Angels’ Games by Walerian Borowczyk and Les Temps morts by René Laloux and Roland Topor, Abigail Susik (Willamette University, USA)
11. Everyday Dreamlife: Surrealism and Animation in Japan, Catherine Hansen (The University of Tokyo, Japan)
12. The Secret Life of the World: Jan Švankmajer’s Documentary Animation, Kristoffer Noheden (Stockholm University, Sweden)

Part Three: A Living Art for Critical Re-enchantment: Contemporary Surrealism and Animation
Introduction to Part Three, Abigail Susik
13. Animating the surreal side of structural film in the 1970s, Ken Eisenstein (Bucknell University, USA)
14. Ubu Animated: Jan Lenica, Geoff Dunbar, and William Kentridge, Ian Walker (Independent Scholar, UK)
15. Surrealism, Animation, and Ecological Consciousness in Cecilia Vicuña’s Paracas (1983), Paulina Caro Troncoso (Independent Scholar, Chile and Italy)
16. A Feminist–Surrealist Metamorphosis: The Charged Objects of Kim L. Pace, Catriona McAra (University of Aberdeen, UK)
17. Sweet Horror Claymation: Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg’s Neo-neo-surrealism, Marie Arleth Skov (Independent scholar, Germany)

Interviews
18. ‘We Are All Surrealists’: Abigail Susik and Jacolby Satterwhite in conversation, Jacolby Satterwhite (New York-based artist, USA)
19. An Exorcism and Liberation: Penny Slinger and Judith Noble in conversation, Judith Noble (Plymouth College of Art, UK), Penny Slinger (Los Angeles-based artist, USA)

Notes
Index

Les mer
The first book devoted to transnational surrealism’s dynamic engagement with the history, theory, and medium of cinematic animation as a mode of imagining possibilities for the revolutionary transformation of both art and life.
Les mer
Features cutting-edge research by experts from around the world in an exploration of the political and historical contexts behind the fundamental synergy between surrealism and animation over the last century
Les mer

Exploring all aspects of the Surrealist movement since its establishment in Europe in the 1920s, this series places particular emphasis on the international scope of the movement and on the long history of Surrealism, extending up to the present day. ‘Transnational Surrealism’ is a venue for scholars from multiple fields to engage with Surrealist history, with a particular focus on themes and concepts from the 1940s onwards, or on the activities of Surrealist groups in areas of the world that lie beyond the usual reach of studies of Surrealism such as Africa, China, Japan, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe and the USA. In tracing connections between diverse global contexts, the series aims to question ideas of national forms of expression. Monographic studies of individual groups, artists and writers are welcome, especially those that promise to uncover new or relatively overlooked areas of Surrealist activity. Proposals that promote gender and racial diversity in Surrealism studies are particularly encouraged given the fundamental aims of the series.

Editors

Abigail Susik, Willamette University, USA
Krzysztof Fijalkowski, Norwich University of the Arts, UK

Advisory Board


Raymond Spiteri, Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand
Catherine L. Hansen, The University of Tokyo, Japan
María Clara Bernal, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia
Fabrice Flahutez, Université Jean Monnet de Saint-Étienne, France
Natalya Lusty, University of Melbourne, Australia
Ambra D’Antone, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Italy and the Kunsthistorisches Institute in Florenz, Italy
Gavin Parkinson, The Courtauld Institute of Art, UK
Kristoffer Noheden, Stockholm University, Sweden
Michael Richardson, joint editor of The Surrealism Reader (2015), and Visiting Fellow (honorary) at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

Les mer

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781350475915
Publisert
2025-06-12
Utgiver
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Vekt
1052 gr
Høyde
246 mm
Bredde
174 mm
Dybde
24 mm
Aldersnivå
UP, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
328

Redaktør

Om bidragsyterne

Abigail Susik is Associate Professor of Art History at Willamette University, USA, and joint editor of the Transnational Surrealism series. She has published several books on surrealism, including Surrealist Sabotage and The War on Work (2021).