A statement on the hypocrisy and deception that occurs in the surrealist movement today. Surrealism must INVOLVE EVERYONE, not just a select few!
SURREALISM IN THE SERVICE OF REVOLUTION by Keith Wigdor
My name is Keith Wigdor and I am a Surrealist! Surrealism is a movement that involves all forms of mental activity intended to destroy logic. There is no orthodox tradition when it comes to a Revolution of the Mind, an overwhelming desire to embrace chance, and contempt against hypocrisy most of all! There are no leaders here, there exists no groups, no closed doors. There exists the need to free humanity from its own predispositions toward conformity and enslavement to thought control, to eliminate all rational states of mind, to overcome subordination to the social order and to exorcise all the demons of tradition from one's life. Surrealism strives for the poem beyond one's control. There is only poetry and that poetry is the image from the irrational. This is where my work comes from and all the secrets of the, "structured" self become exposed and the results are to be examined by all. Surrealism maintains no closed doors!!! There are so called, "Surrealist Groups" that claim to speak on behalf of the movement, by staging bogus protests while offering their goods for sale in art shows that are in essence no different than the capitalist spectacle that they claim to protest against. I organized a Surrealist Online Event, SURREALISM 2003, where I presented artists and poets willing to collectively organize and exhibit their art online and available for all to see. The necessity to bypass the mechanism of the art world and the consumerist model of exhibiting one's work for sale alone was successfully accomplished, and this was by artists and poets who willingly participated in SURREALISM 2003, with the intention to overcome the resistance and closed doors of Surrealism, that to this day remains under the control of wannabe hack surrealists who claim to liberate us from control! Their actions result in the refusal to assure the public of the validity and importance of Surrealist Exploration and Activity. The Transformation of Life by Desire can be accompished by the willingness to INVOLVE ALL, instead of the select few, who are responsible for the ignorance that comes with the Misunderstanding of Surrealism. It comes as no surprise when so called established, "Surrealists" ridicule and mock their critics and detractors when they are confronted with the failures of this movement. Even Andre Breton recognized the June 1936 INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF SURREALISM in London as a major turning point for Surrealism along with its influence on the hearts and minds of the public. Remember that it was also ART that did inject enormous energy into the movement, though we all know that POETRY is the first frontier of Surrealist Exploration. So to dismiss other artists who are willing to explore the marvelous, is a big mistake and harmful to the potential that Surrealism has to offer. We all share the INTERNAL WORLD MODEL OF COGNITION, so it is really inevitable that ALL humans interact with the very real self-model that is within us all. This interaction is the perspective that Surrealism examines and with the tools of the Unconscious, the Irrational, the Automatic, we can take a highly reduced abstraction, the mind, and make it coherent and understandable, without being labeled as careless and ambivalent. Surrealism does achieve the impossible, does it not? What else can be so essential to prove that the logical consistency of rational thought alone always produces the same expected output, which is harmful to our growth and evolution. The lack of variation and input from other artists and poets does not help the movement. If Surrealism chooses to make a preference of distinction to Bugs Bunny, The Marx Brothers, Blues Musicians from the past, and Eroticism, etc, is it not being sincere to its formal qualities of integration with other phenomenon, or even other people like me, KEITH WIGDOR and YOU, to achieve its goals? Surrealism does posses a basic tenet and that is to place the powers of the unconscious mind at the disposal of the waking mind. Hysteria is also the most effective and a worthy adversary of civilization's rational model, for it is one of Surrealism's main assets in the explicit and complete destruction of logic and its gross sensibilty. Ever wonder why Surrealism has had such difficulty in demonstrating its enormous potential? Keith Wigdor, 2004
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