Échappées belles - Correspondance of Surrealist Women

deadline for submissions: 
January 27, 2024
full name / name of organization: 
Andrea Oberhuber (Montreal University), Sylvano Santini (University of Quebec in Montreal) et Eve Lemieux-Cloutier (University of Quebec in Montreal)

Call for papers – International Colloquium

Organized by

Andrea Oberhuber (Montreal University), Sylvano Santini (University of Quebec in Montreal) et Eve Lemieux-Cloutier (University of Quebec in Montreal)

Montreal, October 23-25 2024

 

Where do we stand, almost 100 years after André Breton published the First Manifesto of Surrealism, in our understanding of what Georgiana Colvile and Kate Conley, in La femme s'entête (1998), have called "the feminine part" of the third historical avant-garde? Is it still necessary in 2023 to add a question mark, as the curators did in the case of the Surréalisme au féminin? exhibition at the Musée de Montmartre in summer 2023? Would this symbolize a doubt about the historical presence and aesthetic contribution of numerous female creators - writers and artists, often both at the same time - to the Surrealist movement? It's true that, in the first pages of the manifesto, Breton evokes a castle in a "rustic setting, not far from Paris" where his "handsome and cordial" friends have taken up residence. He names them all, one by one, before concluding by imagining "and gorgeous women, I might add", without bothering to specify their names.

 

Over the past thirty years, a growing number of literary critics and art historians have put names and images to these "gorgeous women " (Rubin Suleiman, 1990, Caws, Kuenzli and Raaberg, 1991, Conley, 1996, Rosemont, 1998, Colvile, 1999, among others). We now know that Simone Kahn and Mick Soupault were immortalized in Man Ray's group photographs, that the young Gisèle Prassinos was the "femme-enfant" par excellence (Conley and Mahon, 2023) for quite some time, and that the group generally became more welcoming of creative women in the post-war period (Bonnet, 2006). Nor is there any need to revisit the triple role of muse-model-mistress in which young women authors and artists were mostly confined, and which for many was a means of drawing closer to Breton's "group", finding new ideas and values, while others have settled for a deliberately marginal position within the Surrealist nebula. Whether their relationship was one of proximity or distance, varying according to the key moments in their careers, their contribution to Surrealist aesthetics and ethics - since the two are intimately linked in the avant-garde movements of the first half of the 20th century - is no longer in doubt today. It seems to us that the centenary of the publication of the founding manifesto offers an opportunity to consider the past-present-future of Surrealism from a perspective that gives pride of place to the feminine. This bias in favor of women's legacy, particularly in the field of correspondence, is intended to go beyond a binary vision of masculine and feminine, to breathe new life into movement studies and perpetuate creative practices to the present day.

 

No progress, however radical, can be made without a return to the past. Surrealist women creators were witnessed to an era of upheaval that profoundly changed the conditions of art and forms of life. This was the desire of the avant-garde in general and Surrealism in particular, although it has been a long time coming. Women's art made an original and integral contribution to the creation of these new conditions. And the reasons that explains the late realization of the will to change life are the same that might clarify the delay in the discovery of women's work. We must avoid repeating this delay by hesitating to join their works to the forms of life that produced them. If the end of art's autonomy is an essential contribution of the historical avant-gardes, despite their failure, as Peter Bürger (1984) demonstrated long ago, it goes beyond the question of gender. We must recognize, however, that its ultimate consequences affect women more intensely, whose subversive works have not been as decontextualized and neutralized by bourgeois recuperation and the art market as those of men. Besides, in his thesis on the historical failure of the avant-garde, Bürger never mentions the existence of women's Surrealist works. Without wishing to deny their access to economic capital - they have the same right to it as men - their works still retain their subversive power. It's this power that we need to bring to light, by revisiting and questioning the forms of life that gave rise to them.

 

As part of the 100th anniversary of Surrealism in 2024, we propose to organize a colloquium on what we might be called a blind spot in surrealism studies to date, prompting us to reflect on it together: the correspondence of writers and artists whom we associate closely or remotely with the movement.

 

They (hers) - Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington, Lise Deharme, Leonor Fini, Simone Kahn, Nelly Kaplan, Dora Maar, Lee Miller, Suzanne Muzard, Gisèle Prassinos, Dorothea Tanning and Unica Zürn, to name but a few - knew each other from close and far-flung Surrealist circles. Although they sometimes maintained an ongoing correspondence with one of the eminent representatives of Surrealism, there are few examples of letters they addressed to each other. Examples include the correspondence between Simone Kahn and her cousin Denise Lévy, or the few letters exchanged between Claude Cahun and Adrienne Monnier. In the majority of cases, female Surrealist artists corresponded with their male counterparts: Nelly Kaplan and Leonor Fini with André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Gisèle Prassinos with Henri Parisot, Lise Deharme with Pierre Reverdy, Unica Zürn with Henri Michaux and, of course, Jacqueline Lamba with André Breton.

 

While it is generally believed that male writers and artists pursue their work by shaping and editing their correspondence - they somehow know that it will be read - we shouldn't think that women don't care. We need to get rid of all gendered stereotypes about epistolary writing, such as the one suggesting that women neglect the literary value of their letters in favor of spontaneity. As Brigitte Diaz (2006) rightly points out, the various gendered stereotypes associated with correspondence should no longer have a place in epistolary studies. This will be all the more true in our colloquium, which, rather than redoing the history of Surrealism, aims to extend and refine it by questioning the modes of sociability favored by women, their desire to collaborate, their friendships and loves, their criticisms, their ambitions, their moods - in short, their aesthetic, political and social sensibilities. In short, it will explore the multiple links - from everyday life to political reflections to questions of advice on a work in progress, for example - that several generations of Surrealist creators established between writing, creation and life in an era that, in more ways than one, can still inspire our own.

 

Proposals for papers - whether for research or research/creation - which may concern published or archival correspondence by women, or, from a broader perspective, the question of epistolary writing by women, should be around 300 words long and accompanied by a brief bio-bibliographical note. Written in French or English, they should be sent simultaneously to Andrea Oberhuber (andrea.oberhuber@umontreal.ca), Sylvano Santini (santini.sylvano@uqam.ca) and Eve Lemieux-Cloutier (lemieux-cloutier.eve@courrier.uqam.ca) no later than January 27, 2024. In the subject line of your message, please indicate "Colloque. Échappées belles".

 

Please note that the colloquium organizers are planning to submit a funding application to cover part of the travel and subsistence expenses of colloquium participants. Further information will be sent to candidates whose proposals have been accepted by the scientific committee.

 

Bibliography*

Bonnet, Marie-Jo, Femmes artistes dans les avant-gardes, Paris, Odile Jacob, 2006.

Bürger, Peter, Theory of the Avant-Garde, trad. Michael Shaw, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1974.

Caws, Mary Ann, Rudolf Kuenzli et Gwen Raaberg (dir.), Surrealism and Women, Cambridge, The MIT Press, 1991.

Colvile, Georgiana, et Katharine Conley (dir.), La femme s’entête. La part du féminin dans le surréalisme, Paris, Lachenal et Ritter, coll. « Pleine Marge », 1998.

Colvile, Georgiana, Scandaleusement d'elles: trente-quatre femmes surréalistes, Paris,
Jean Michel Place, 1999.

Conley, Katharine, Automatic Woman, Nebraska, University of Nebraska Press, 1996.

Conley, Kate, et Alyce Mahon, «The “Problem of Woman” in Surrealism », International Journal of Surrealism, vol. 1 n° 1, 2023, p. v-ix. 

Diaz, Brigitte, et Jürgen Siess (dir.), L'épistolaire au féminin : Correspondances de femmes (xviiie-xxe siècle),Caen, Presses universitaires de Caen, 2006.

Oberhuber, Andrea, Faire œuvre à deux. Le livre surréaliste au féminin, Montréal, Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, coll. « Art + », 2023.

Rosemont, Penelope (dir.), Surrealist Women, An International Anthology, Texas, University of Texas Press, coll. « Surrealist Revolution », 1998. 

Suleiman, Susan Rubin, Subversive Intent: Gender, Politics, and the Avant-Garde, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1990.