'Desire in a Book' Surrealist Exhibition at PSTL

The PSTL Gallery at Pace in St. Louis (Midtown) was the first location for this multi-venue exhibition.  Our second location will be the Thomas Jefferson Visual Arts Gallery, 4100 S. Lindbergh Blvd.  STL, MO  63127.  Please join us for the OPENING Friday April 13, 2012.  Here are some photos of the opening at PSTL:

Desire in a Book Exhibition update

The opening of Desire in a Book will be from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm on Friday, September 9 at the PSTL Gallery, 3842 Washington Blvd in Midtown.  The after-party starts at 9:30 pm at an undisclosed location.  Stay tuned!

We thought you were dead...

No, just sleeping. New updates through-out August and September.

Surrealist book project

 As the country burns and the politicians toil, a new, one-of-a-kind book project by part of the international Surrealist Movement will be announced soon ...

Jean Benoît 1922 - 2010

The extraordinary and uncompromising Surrealist Jean Benoît passed away August 20, 2010.  He was one of the most powerful purveyors of Surrealist imagery the world has ever seen.  Benoît joined the Surrealist Movement in 1959 and that same year he performed and designed the costumes for the Exécution Du Testament Du Marquis De Sade.  He was married to Surrealist Mimi Parent (1924 - 2005).  Members of Surrealist Movement will have tributes to him through-out this year and we will post them here when they become available.

New book from the Surrealist Movement

Hydrolith is here; the newest book from the International Surrealist Movement. You can order the book from the publisher or contact us.
HYDROLITH

Schlechter Duvall has passed away...

I posted about my Surrealist commrade Schlechter Duvall back in May. It is with sadness that I report from his family that he has passed away. I will be posting some new info on Schlechter in tribute to him this coming week.

His ever-potent quote which used to be next to my easel: "Surrealism always was, still is, and always will be the first and last force of revolt on this Earth. It exists only for one reason: to realize freedom. And for freedom's sake, I want to warn every human being that surrealism is more than ever ALIVE!"

What are the Surrealists doing....?

The newest Declaration from the International Surrealist Movement:


International Surrealist Declaration
for the imprisoned Serbian anarchosyndicalists
-We hereby declare our unconditional solidarity with the five* Serbian anarcho-syndicalists who have been imprisoned since September the 4th, facing the charge of “international terrorism.” Tadej Kurep, Ivan Vulović, Sanja Dojkić, Ratibor Trivunac and Nikola Mitrović, all members of Sindikalna konfederacija Anarho-sindikalistička inicijativa (ASI), were arrested some days after an action of solidarity with the Greek activist, and then-hunger striker, Thodoris Iliopoulos. The target of this action was the Greek embassy in Belgrade.
The Serbian authorities used the slight damages caused to the building of the Greek embassy as a pretext in order to exercise their repressive powers, labeling the members of ASI as “terrorist” and detaining them with no substantial evidence of their actual involvement in this so-called crime of damaging the façade of a building. It is not the building, of course, that concerns the Serbian police; neither is it the symbolism, per se, of an attack against the embassy of another state: the real impact of international solidarity and radical politics, with a view towards social emancipation, is what makes them transgress the limits of their supposed democracy, so as to imprison militants through farcical procedures.
Ratibor Trivunac, one of the accused, is a friend of the international surrealist movement. But surrealism is not an exclusive club of personal relations, any more than it is one of mere aesthetic affinities. We consider as our brothers all these five persecuted Serbian militants (and the sixth, Ivan Savic, who was arrested some days later) because their cause, their choice to live and to struggle for another, liberated life, is one that we share. When a state lays its oppressive hand upon one of us, we must all feel the threat to our freedom, we must all take a stand with those who risk being deprived of their elementary freedoms because they are determined to fight, here and now, for real universal freedom.
We demand the immediate release of our six comrades and friends!
The passion for freedom is stronger than any of your prisons!

Athens Surrealist Group:
Grigoris Apostolides, Giannis Golfinopoulos, Manolis Daskalos, Alexandra Halkias, Diamantis Karavolas, Vangelis Koutalis, Sotiris Liontos, Helias Melios, Lefki Mossou, Makis Perdikomatis, Nikos Stabakis, Theoni Tabaki, Marianna Xanthopoulou, Giannis Xourias.

Nicosia: Kostas Reousis.

Leeds Surrealist Group:
Gareth Brown, Stephen J. Clark, Kenneth Cox, Luke Dominey, Jan Drabble, Bill Howe, Caroline Jeffs, Sarah Metcalf, Mike Peters, Peter Overton, Martin Trippett.

Surrealist London Action Group (SLAG):
Paul Cowdell, Merl Fluin, Aniano Henrique, Patrick Hourihan.


Grupo Surrealista de Madrid:
José Arias Taboada, Eugenio Castro, Manuel Crespo, Javier Gálvez, Jesús García Rodríguez, Vicente Gutiérrez Escudero, Bruno Jacobs, Lurdes Martínez, Julio Monteverde, Noé Ortega, Antonio Ramírez, José Manuel Rojo, María Santana y Ángel Zapata.
and its friends:
Sonia Ayerra, Rag Cuter, Andrés Devesa, Jesús González Gómez, Paul Hammond, Inés Mendoza, Emilio Santiago, Leticia Vera and the Anarchist Group Al Margen.

Groupe Surréaliste de Montréal:
Jean-Maurice Brouillet, Dominic Tétrault.

Le Groupe de Paris du mouvement surréaliste:
Michèle Bachelet, Alfredo Fernandes, Jean-Pierre Guillon, Michaël Löwy, Marie-Dominique Massoni, Dominique Paul, Michel Zimbacca.

La Vertèbre et le Rossignol (ville de Québec):
Enrique Lechuga, David Nadeau.

on behalf of Grupo Surrealista del Río de la Plata/Buenos Aires-Montevideo:
Juan Carlos Otaño.

on behalf of Skupina Českých a Slovenských Surrealistů:
Frantisek Dryje, Katerina Pinosova, Bertrand Schmitt, Bruno Solarik.

Surrealistgruppen i Stockholm, Johannes Bergmark.

Sürrealist Eylem Türkiye

Surrealist Movement in U.S.A.:

Chicago Surrealist Group: Penelope Rosemont, Paul Garon, Beth Garon, Gale Ahrens, David Roediger, Joseph Jablonski, Joel Williams, Jan Hathaway, Irene Plazewski, Janina Ciezadlo, Renay Kirkman, Tamara L. Smith.

Portland: Brandon Freels, M.K. Shibek.

The St. Louis Surrealist Group:
Richard Burke, Susan Burke, Andrew Torch, M. M. Morose.

Eric Bragg (www.surrealcoconut.com)



• - Currently six imprisoned

October 31, 2009

Sarane Alexandrian has died.

The group of Surrealist Movement members directly associated with Breton, Picabia and other Pre-WWII members becomes one fewer this week. Sarane was an active Movement member in the 1940's - 1950's, director of NEON, headed the journal Supérieur Inconnu, wrote the overview 'Surrealist Art' (1969) and countless other books and novels. Our comrade will be missed.

Schlechter Duvall, Words of Fire

Schlechter-who?! An under-appreciated international Surrealist whose words are still like fire-starters some 40 years later: "Surrealism always was, still is, and always will be the first and last force of revolt on this Earth. It exists only for one reason: to realize freedom. And for freedom's sake, I want to warn every human being that surrealism is more than ever ALIVE!"

I had this statement from Duvall posted next to my studio easel for many years.

(Courtesy of 'Surrealist Subversions' (Sakolsky) Autonomedia 2002)

Surrealism in Midtown

This is the last week (through Saturday afternoon) that you can see my art show at the PSTL Gallery inside Pace. 3842 Washington Blvd
STL 63108. Michael Allen's Ecology of Absence Blog has a good story on the history of the building that PACE now occupies......

http://ecoabsence.blogspot.com/2009/05/mid-century-modern-preservation-in.html

Franklin Rosemont departs

Last week the Surrealist Movement and the world in general lost a dear friend, Franklin Rosemont. Franklin, co-founder of the Chicago Surrealist Group, facilitator of a more organized Surrealist Movement in the United States (in general terms) IWW activist, Arsenal founder, writer, champion of Ted Joans and Philip Lamantia, friend of the Beats; mentor and supporter of the Portland Surrealist Group and the Saint Louis Surrealist Group, etc, can NOT be summed up in a mere blogpost so I will let his words linger on like sweet wine on a hot sun-soaked day......... : "Surrealism strives to liberate the imagination from the strictures of repression, to restore our latent poetic faculties, to put language in the service of desire and to enable it to formulate ardent images of implacable subversion. There is no 'realistic' escape from the life which offers more than the surrealist seizure of life. Unveiled language does not propose an escape but rather a thoroughgoing transformation of the world."

"Starting from the very depths of what we call the imagination, pure psychic automatism brings to the surface signals of the individual's farthest vision into the self - signals which tend to take on aspects of the future. Surrealism, this invisible ray, was brought into being not only to discover these signals, but to realize the future they call forth. The automatic image becomes a guide to action." --- Franklin Rosemont, excerpts via Arsenal 1970

Welcome to Crazies, Kooks & Lawrence Welk

This blog will contain somewhat infrequent musings from me and maybe guest bloggers associated with art, poetry, alien visitation, time-travel, government conspiracies, historical mysteries, Tesla's last experiments, Lawrence Welk's organ (whoa), fringe movements deserving more attention and artistic endeavors out of the mainstream........