0:00:02 > 0:00:04It's 100 years since the word "surreal" was first used.
0:00:04 > 0:00:07And now, you hear it everywhere.
0:00:07 > 0:00:11What a riot of surreal slapstick!
0:00:11 > 0:00:14Last night in Cleveland was surreal!
0:00:14 > 0:00:16I'm just shaking and it's just surreal.
0:00:16 > 0:00:21A woman from Brighton who was mistaken for Ivanka Trump on Twitter
0:00:21 > 0:00:24by none other than the US President-elect himself
0:00:24 > 0:00:26says it's all rather surreal.
0:00:27 > 0:00:30For many people, surreal just means bizarre.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33If you think of Surrealist art at all, you'll maybe think of those
0:00:33 > 0:00:36lonely landscapes littered with melting clocks,
0:00:36 > 0:00:39floating businessmen in bowler hats,
0:00:39 > 0:00:43a woman who looks like a violin, a lobster where a telephone should be!
0:00:43 > 0:00:46But Surrealism didn't start out like that.
0:00:46 > 0:00:50I'm a psychotherapist. I'm no stranger to the world of dreams.
0:00:50 > 0:00:54In this film, I'm going to take you back to the beginnings
0:00:54 > 0:00:57of the Surrealist movement and trace how their interest
0:00:57 > 0:01:01in the unconscious mind sparked an explosion of revolutionary ideas
0:01:01 > 0:01:05that transformed art and cinema and the world around us.
0:01:05 > 0:01:08Surrealism was never just a visual style.
0:01:08 > 0:01:10It was a state of mind and a way of life.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12I'll meet some contemporary artists
0:01:12 > 0:01:15who can still channel their inner Surrealist,
0:01:15 > 0:01:19and see how the experimental ideas of a group of young artists
0:01:19 > 0:01:23reaching for the absurd in response to a world in crisis
0:01:23 > 0:01:26would create some of the most recognisable
0:01:26 > 0:01:29and popular art of the 20th century.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32And I'll delve into the original Surrealist writings
0:01:32 > 0:01:35for inspiration and have a go for myself...
0:01:35 > 0:01:39Can you tell me your dreams that you dream when you're asleep?
0:01:39 > 0:01:42..to find out what being a Surrealist is really about.
0:01:42 > 0:01:44You know, I might put some clothes on.
0:01:44 > 0:01:46LAUGHTER
0:01:54 > 0:02:00In 1920s Paris, there were lots of artists and writers and thinkers,
0:02:00 > 0:02:04and they were, on the whole, pretty disillusioned with society.
0:02:04 > 0:02:08The society that had produced World War I.
0:02:08 > 0:02:12Put aside for a moment the moustachioed showman Dali
0:02:12 > 0:02:15and the bowler-hatted illusionist Monsieur Magritte.
0:02:15 > 0:02:18At the beginning, the hero of the story was not a painter,
0:02:18 > 0:02:21but a poet, Andre Breton.
0:02:23 > 0:02:27Breton was a member of the absurdist art movement Dada.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30But he left, like everyone else, as the group imploded.
0:02:30 > 0:02:36In his 1922 poem Lachez Tout, he wrote,
0:02:36 > 0:02:38"Drop everything. Drop Dada
0:02:38 > 0:02:40"Drop your wife. Drop your mistress
0:02:40 > 0:02:42"Drop your hopes and fears
0:02:42 > 0:02:45"Park your children in the woods
0:02:45 > 0:02:47"Drop the substance for the shadow
0:02:47 > 0:02:48"Drop your comfortable life
0:02:48 > 0:02:52"What you have been given for the future, and set off on the roads."
0:02:54 > 0:02:56I know it sounds a bit bleak,
0:02:56 > 0:03:00but Breton had his reasons for wanting to rearrange world order.
0:03:01 > 0:03:05Breton had been a medical student during the First World War.
0:03:05 > 0:03:07He worked at a psychiatric hospital in France
0:03:07 > 0:03:10with men suffering from shellshock.
0:03:10 > 0:03:13He saw people whose minds had responded to the trauma of war
0:03:13 > 0:03:15in unexpected ways.
0:03:15 > 0:03:18Breton took a special interest in their dreams
0:03:18 > 0:03:20and kept records of them.
0:03:23 > 0:03:28He wrote, "I believe in the future resolution of these two states -
0:03:28 > 0:03:30"dream and reality,
0:03:30 > 0:03:32"which are seemingly so contradictory,
0:03:32 > 0:03:36"into a kind of absolute reality.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38"A sur-reality."
0:03:38 > 0:03:43He set out his ideas in a sort of handbook, the Surrealist Manifesto.
0:03:44 > 0:03:50He defined Surrealism as, "Psychic automatism in its pure state,
0:03:50 > 0:03:54"by which one proposes to express verbally,
0:03:54 > 0:03:58"by means of the written word, or in any other manner,
0:03:58 > 0:04:01"the actual functioning of thought.
0:04:01 > 0:04:07"Dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason,
0:04:07 > 0:04:12"exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern.
0:04:12 > 0:04:16"The following have performed acts of absolute Surrealism..."
0:04:16 > 0:04:20And he goes on to mention his mates, who are Messrs...
0:04:26 > 0:04:30Isn't it funny, he talks about doing away with order and things
0:04:30 > 0:04:33and he's putting this lot in alphabetical order!
0:04:41 > 0:04:42Now, you'll notice there's some
0:04:42 > 0:04:44very famous names of Surrealism not there.
0:04:44 > 0:04:47That's because they hadn't joined yet.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51In fact, that list is a list of poets.
0:04:51 > 0:04:53At the beginning of Surrealism,
0:04:53 > 0:04:55the group contained very few artists.
0:04:55 > 0:04:58But it wouldn't stay that way for long.
0:04:58 > 0:05:01So, how do you be a Surrealist?
0:05:01 > 0:05:03Well, you can try this at home, everyone.
0:05:03 > 0:05:08"After you have settled yourself in a place as favourable as possible
0:05:08 > 0:05:12"to the concentration of your mind upon itself,
0:05:12 > 0:05:14"have writing materials brought to you."
0:05:14 > 0:05:16Because we've all got servants, haven't we(?)
0:05:16 > 0:05:19"Put yourself in as passive or receptive
0:05:19 > 0:05:22"a state of mind as you can.
0:05:22 > 0:05:27"Write quickly, without any preconceived subject, fast enough
0:05:27 > 0:05:30"so that you will not remember what you're writing,
0:05:30 > 0:05:33"and don't be tempted to reread what you've written."
0:05:39 > 0:05:42You can see that it was a simple step from automatic writing
0:05:42 > 0:05:44to automatic drawing.
0:05:45 > 0:05:49Breton's idea was to produce work that was not controlled by reason.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52He had said that it should be totally free from aesthetic concerns
0:05:52 > 0:05:55and it wasn't important to him what it looked like.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59As long as it channelled the unconscious, it would be of value.
0:05:59 > 0:06:02In this 1925 drawing by Andre Masson,
0:06:02 > 0:06:07you can see he's added little details onto the freeform doodle.
0:06:07 > 0:06:09People have tried to interpret these drawings.
0:06:09 > 0:06:11They've said that, "Oh, it's because he was
0:06:11 > 0:06:12"a soldier in the First World War
0:06:12 > 0:06:14"and these are all the dismembered parts".
0:06:14 > 0:06:16Or other people say, "Look at the fluidity of it
0:06:16 > 0:06:19"and all the bits of bodies. It's obviously to do about sex."
0:06:19 > 0:06:21Whatever you read into it,
0:06:21 > 0:06:24it will tell you more about you than it will about Masson.
0:06:24 > 0:06:28When I look at it, the first thing I see is this shape here,
0:06:28 > 0:06:30which, to me, looks like a pair of hairy testicles.
0:06:32 > 0:06:35Masson moved beyond drawing and started to experiment
0:06:35 > 0:06:38with other materials, including paint and sand.
0:06:38 > 0:06:41Masson had a studio next to Joan Miro.
0:06:41 > 0:06:45HIS experiments with Surrealism took on a different form.
0:06:45 > 0:06:48He developed his automatic drawings into paintings
0:06:48 > 0:06:52full of strange symbolism and biomorphic shapes,
0:06:52 > 0:06:56creating dream-like images that were the beginnings
0:06:56 > 0:06:59of what we might recognise today as Surrealist art.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03This is the thing about Breton's rules.
0:07:03 > 0:07:06He was trying to encourage people to tap into their unconscious mind
0:07:06 > 0:07:10and to follow whatever they might find there.
0:07:10 > 0:07:14So anyone who truly followed his rules would also have to break them.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20Our understand of our unconscious mind is grounded in the work
0:07:20 > 0:07:23of the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud,
0:07:23 > 0:07:26the founding father of psychoanalysis.
0:07:26 > 0:07:30Freud described dreams as "the royal road to the unconscious".
0:07:32 > 0:07:36I can't believe I've been allowed to come and sit in Freud's chair,
0:07:36 > 0:07:39in Freud's office and look at Freud's couch.
0:07:39 > 0:07:41I'm not actually allowed to lie on the couch because that is
0:07:41 > 0:07:46just too sacred, but to sit here, for me, a psychotherapist, is...
0:07:46 > 0:07:49Well, it's quite intimidating.
0:07:53 > 0:07:56You'd think, wouldn't you, because the Surrealists
0:07:56 > 0:07:58were so keen on the unconscious
0:07:58 > 0:08:01and Freud was so keen on the unconscious,
0:08:01 > 0:08:04that they were a sort of match made in heaven,
0:08:04 > 0:08:08but Freud just wanted to use the unconscious to cure madness,
0:08:08 > 0:08:11rather than to explore madness.
0:08:11 > 0:08:13Freud always wanted to come to conclusions.
0:08:13 > 0:08:16He wanted to come to interpretations,
0:08:16 > 0:08:19whereas the Surrealists were more about opening things out
0:08:19 > 0:08:21and playing with what you opened out.
0:08:23 > 0:08:25Our gang of young Surrealists,
0:08:25 > 0:08:28intrepid explorers of the mind's creative possibilities,
0:08:28 > 0:08:34did conduct their own experiments, but of a different kind to Dr Freud.
0:08:35 > 0:08:39This apartment block on the Rue de Grenelle on the Left Bank in Paris
0:08:39 > 0:08:44was the site of their first office, the Bureau of Surrealist Research,
0:08:44 > 0:08:48opened on 11th October 1924.
0:08:48 > 0:08:51And it was here that Breton and his friends
0:08:51 > 0:08:55were open for business every day,
0:08:55 > 0:08:58Monday to Saturday, 4.30-6.30,
0:08:58 > 0:09:02in order to take confessions from members of the public,
0:09:02 > 0:09:06in order to release their unconscious minds
0:09:06 > 0:09:08and free them from the mores of society
0:09:08 > 0:09:11and the conventions of the bourgeois.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15Fellow poet Louis Aragon wrote,
0:09:15 > 0:09:19"At 15 Rue de Grenelle, we've opened romantic lodgings
0:09:19 > 0:09:22"for unclassifiable ideas and revolutions in progress".
0:09:25 > 0:09:29They made brightly-coloured flyers known as "papillon",
0:09:29 > 0:09:32that they distributed on the streets of Paris with slogans like,
0:09:32 > 0:09:36"If you love love, you'll love Surrealism",
0:09:36 > 0:09:39and, "Parents! Tell your children your dreams!"
0:09:41 > 0:09:44They held Surrealist seances and invited people to come in
0:09:44 > 0:09:47and share stories of dreams and coincidences.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54I rather like this idea, so I'm going to set up my own
0:09:54 > 0:09:57pop-up Bureau of Surrealist Research in a nearby street.
0:10:16 > 0:10:19That's the thing about relying on random chance,
0:10:19 > 0:10:21sometimes nobody turns up.
0:10:24 > 0:10:28Could you tell me the last dream you had?
0:10:30 > 0:10:32I can't, because I can't remember it.
0:10:32 > 0:10:35- That's odd. - I slept very well last night.- Yeah.
0:10:35 > 0:10:37But I actually can't remember my last dream.
0:10:37 > 0:10:40Can you tell me "vos reves",
0:10:40 > 0:10:44your dreams that you dream when you're asleep?
0:10:44 > 0:10:48And what I'd really like to know is about your inner reality.
0:10:48 > 0:10:53What's...the images that are coming to the fore for you?
0:10:53 > 0:10:55A car.
0:10:55 > 0:10:56Fabulous!
0:10:56 > 0:10:58A dream where I would fly.
0:10:58 > 0:11:03I would just open my arms, I would sort of glide all over the city,
0:11:03 > 0:11:05all over wherever I was in the country.
0:11:05 > 0:11:08And it was an absolutely wonderful feeling. I used to love it.
0:11:08 > 0:11:11Once, I was driving a car and behind me,
0:11:11 > 0:11:15there was a dead guy and I didn't know if I'd been doing that or not.
0:11:15 > 0:11:17It wasn't the fact that it was, like,
0:11:17 > 0:11:19people were dying or something, it was just... It was, like,
0:11:19 > 0:11:21severely eerie and it was just very, very silent.
0:11:23 > 0:11:27'In his description of the original Bureau of Surrealist Research,'
0:11:27 > 0:11:29Louis Aragon said,
0:11:29 > 0:11:32"We've suspended a woman from the ceiling of an empty room
0:11:32 > 0:11:36"and worried men come there every day, bearers of weighty secrets.
0:11:36 > 0:11:41"We're working on a task that's enigmatic, even for us."
0:11:42 > 0:11:44I did have a recurring dream in childhood,
0:11:44 > 0:11:48which was about a train travelling very fast through a desert.
0:11:48 > 0:11:51Perhaps also a sense of something going to go wrong,
0:11:51 > 0:11:55some imminent catastrophe and then it never happens, I wake up.
0:11:55 > 0:11:57OK.
0:11:57 > 0:12:02I would like you to draw a picture of your dream.
0:12:02 > 0:12:05And as you draw your dream, can you tell me about it?
0:12:05 > 0:12:07Yeah.
0:12:07 > 0:12:09HE SPEAKS FRENCH
0:12:18 > 0:12:23So it's scary outside, but it's not so scary when you get inside?
0:12:23 > 0:12:25- No.- OK.- No.
0:12:27 > 0:12:29'The Surrealist experiment was about trying to discover
0:12:29 > 0:12:33'the unconscious mind in an inclusive way, without boundaries,
0:12:33 > 0:12:36'without judgment, for whoever was brave enough
0:12:36 > 0:12:38'to set foot through the door.'
0:12:39 > 0:12:42How does it feel to drive the car?
0:12:42 > 0:12:45Er...dangerous, because I don't drive.
0:12:48 > 0:12:52I dream of people I literally have not been thinking about
0:12:52 > 0:12:54for 50 years.
0:12:54 > 0:12:58And they were absolutely, er...the same as ever, you know?
0:12:58 > 0:13:02As though, er...many, many years hadn't passed.
0:13:02 > 0:13:07It's a premonition of a soon-to-come death? I don't know.
0:13:07 > 0:13:08It's really weird.
0:13:13 > 0:13:19Oh, my God! It's all pulsating now, the whole thing. Look at that.
0:13:20 > 0:13:22They were onto something, these Surrealists, I think.
0:13:24 > 0:13:30The last dream was I had a... We have a Danish guy that makes
0:13:30 > 0:13:32a lot of television programmes.
0:13:32 > 0:13:37Then he said in the newspapers he will die.
0:13:37 > 0:13:41- The sickness is called... with the lungs.- Uh-huh.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45And I also have a problem with my lungs,
0:13:45 > 0:13:49so I was crying when I saw this newspaper.
0:13:50 > 0:13:53- So I have, like, a nightmare about this one.- Yeah.
0:13:55 > 0:13:59- Is that the man? - Yeah. And his ship here.
0:13:59 > 0:14:00I think you can feel your sadness
0:14:00 > 0:14:02for you through your sadness for him.
0:14:02 > 0:14:05Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
0:14:12 > 0:14:14Each one of these pieces of paper represents a person
0:14:14 > 0:14:19that's come in here today and told me what they dreamt of in the night.
0:14:19 > 0:14:21And what can be more personal than that?
0:14:21 > 0:14:25And I'm feeling quite sort of flooded with it all.
0:14:25 > 0:14:28This is, er... This has been, er...
0:14:28 > 0:14:31it's been a bit more than I expected, actually.
0:14:31 > 0:14:32It's not a game.
0:14:32 > 0:14:36It feels...like we ARE going somewhere real
0:14:36 > 0:14:41when we ask people to tell us their dreams.
0:14:42 > 0:14:46And I feel like I've been trusted with sort of people's
0:14:46 > 0:14:48sort of raw and precious insides, actually.
0:14:53 > 0:14:55The Surrealist experiments with dreams
0:14:55 > 0:14:57are not the same as psychotherapy.
0:14:57 > 0:14:59They're not supposed to be therapeutic, for a start.
0:14:59 > 0:15:02But crucially, they're not private.
0:15:02 > 0:15:06For the Surrealists, dreams were a rich source material.
0:15:06 > 0:15:10They'd publish the accounts they'd gathered alongside
0:15:10 > 0:15:13other Surrealist experiments in a magazine -
0:15:13 > 0:15:15La Revolution Surrealiste.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19But it wasn't some brightly-coloured book of Surrealist art,
0:15:19 > 0:15:22it was a sober and highly-intellectual effort
0:15:22 > 0:15:25modelled on the scientific journals of the day.
0:15:25 > 0:15:28Art historian and curator Dawn Ades
0:15:28 > 0:15:31is a leading voice in the study of Surrealism.
0:15:31 > 0:15:34She has reproductions of all the original magazines
0:15:34 > 0:15:36and is going to help me make sense of
0:15:36 > 0:15:38the early Surrealist experimental work.
0:15:38 > 0:15:41There's a comment here, just underneath the inner title page,
0:15:41 > 0:15:45saying that the first number of La Revolution Surrealiste
0:15:45 > 0:15:49doesn't offer any definitive revelation.
0:15:50 > 0:15:54It... It presents the results of automatic writing,
0:15:54 > 0:15:56the narration of dreams,
0:15:56 > 0:15:59but they're not actually claiming to draw any conclusions from it yet.
0:15:59 > 0:16:02They are, really, experimenting.
0:16:02 > 0:16:03And in a way, they kind of carry on
0:16:03 > 0:16:05in the same line right the way through this
0:16:05 > 0:16:09wonderful journal which has all kinds of exciting discoveries,
0:16:09 > 0:16:12but never laying down the law. Never saying,
0:16:12 > 0:16:15"Well, this is what you have to do and this is how you have to do it".
0:16:15 > 0:16:19'That first issue has really striking examples of drawings
0:16:19 > 0:16:23'and photographs, but no trace yet of those uncanny dreamscapes
0:16:23 > 0:16:25'that one thinks of as Surrealist art.'
0:16:25 > 0:16:28The illustrations in the magazine are very interesting.
0:16:28 > 0:16:30They're there in their own right,
0:16:30 > 0:16:32they're not just illustrating something else.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35They had terrific debates about what visual Surrealism might be.
0:16:35 > 0:16:37One of them said there can never be
0:16:37 > 0:16:39any such thing as Surrealist painting.
0:16:39 > 0:16:41Why was that?
0:16:41 > 0:16:44It's one of the ironies of Surrealism that now it's much
0:16:44 > 0:16:46better known for the artists,
0:16:46 > 0:16:49but the artists were only in a footnote in the first manifesto.
0:16:49 > 0:16:52But for the artists, it was really important
0:16:52 > 0:16:58to belong to a movement that was not just concerned with the formal,
0:16:58 > 0:17:01with the visual, with abstraction, for example.
0:17:01 > 0:17:04Um... But each of the Surrealist artists responded to
0:17:04 > 0:17:08the kind of ideas - to automatism, for example - in different ways.
0:17:08 > 0:17:12And so there is no such thing as a Surrealist style.
0:17:12 > 0:17:16Surrealism was never just a visual style. Surrealism was a way of life.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19It was, you know, a state of mind and a way of life.
0:17:20 > 0:17:25One of the artists most dedicated to the Surrealist life was Max Ernst.
0:17:25 > 0:17:29His spontaneous response to the ideas of Surrealism
0:17:29 > 0:17:32might be mistaken for some pretty basic art techniques.
0:17:32 > 0:17:34But then, that was the point.
0:17:34 > 0:17:38Max Ernst said he found it really difficult to make a mark
0:17:38 > 0:17:40on a virgin piece of paper.
0:17:40 > 0:17:42He said he had a virgin phobia.
0:17:42 > 0:17:50One afternoon, in a seaside inn on a rainy day in 1925,
0:17:50 > 0:17:56he noticed the whirls in the floorboards of this inn.
0:17:56 > 0:18:03And he just took up a piece of paper and rubbed his pencil over it.
0:18:03 > 0:18:05And the image jumped out on the paper
0:18:05 > 0:18:08and suggested all sorts of things to him.
0:18:08 > 0:18:11And he thought this was a great way
0:18:11 > 0:18:14of using the philosophy of Surrealism,
0:18:14 > 0:18:18of working with what comes to you, and a way in.
0:18:18 > 0:18:24And he said it got him over his fear of virgin pieces of paper.
0:18:27 > 0:18:30'The art critic Adrian Searle has agreed to help me
0:18:30 > 0:18:33'try this technique, known as frottage.
0:18:33 > 0:18:35'Now, the word "frottage" also has a sexual meaning,
0:18:35 > 0:18:38'and if you really want your internet search history
0:18:38 > 0:18:41'to look colourful, you can look that up,
0:18:41 > 0:18:43'but Adrian and I are talking about art.'
0:18:43 > 0:18:47Were the Surrealists the first to try and discover
0:18:47 > 0:18:49their unconscious through art?
0:18:49 > 0:18:51It's not at all new.
0:18:51 > 0:18:54Nothing... Nothing is new, really.
0:18:54 > 0:18:59Leonardo da Vinci suggested that you stare at stains on the wall,
0:18:59 > 0:19:05or cracks in the pavement and use that as sort of a beginning
0:19:05 > 0:19:12of a way of inventing a landscape or a... Or some kind of forms.
0:19:12 > 0:19:14Nothing comes from nothing, you know?
0:19:14 > 0:19:17No, I don't think the Surrealists were the first at all.
0:19:17 > 0:19:19Obviously, they were people of their time
0:19:19 > 0:19:21and what was current, they could talk about the unconscious
0:19:21 > 0:19:24perhaps in ways that would have been unfamiliar
0:19:24 > 0:19:26to someone 100 or 200 years ago.
0:19:26 > 0:19:31But it was always happening whether or not people...dressed it up...
0:19:31 > 0:19:34- Gave it a name, or...- Or dressed it up, like they dressed it up.- Yeah.
0:19:34 > 0:19:36I think the surreal has always been with us, hasn't it?
0:19:36 > 0:19:39- People use the word very casually now.- Yeah, they do.
0:19:39 > 0:19:43And anything that's a little bit wacky is somehow surreal.
0:19:43 > 0:19:46But, of course, there was rather more to it than that.
0:19:46 > 0:19:49It wasn't just about unlocking the subconscious
0:19:49 > 0:19:53and seeing the world in novel and peculiar ways.
0:19:53 > 0:19:55It wasn't just about the irrational.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58But they saw it as a sort of revolutionary, um...
0:19:58 > 0:20:01way of not just looking at the world,
0:20:01 > 0:20:03but unpacking how banal it was,
0:20:03 > 0:20:08how, er...ludicrous and repressive society was.
0:20:08 > 0:20:12They saw it as actually having an even more, um...
0:20:12 > 0:20:14It was like a bomb for them.
0:20:16 > 0:20:18They're very Ernst-like, these creatures.
0:20:18 > 0:20:22I think I might have been spending too much time with Ernst lately.
0:20:22 > 0:20:24HE CHUCKLES
0:20:24 > 0:20:27Ernst had been drafted into the German army
0:20:27 > 0:20:28in the First World War.
0:20:28 > 0:20:32He'd been a founding member of the Dada movement in Cologne.
0:20:32 > 0:20:37For Max Ernst, it wasn't just about rubbing leaves under a page.
0:20:37 > 0:20:40Making art in this way was a revolutionary act.
0:20:40 > 0:20:46When you are born into a period where so many...
0:20:46 > 0:20:50events invite you to get revolted
0:20:50 > 0:20:53over what is going on in the world
0:20:53 > 0:20:56and be disgusted with it and so on,
0:20:56 > 0:21:02it is absolutely natural that the work you produce is revolutionary.
0:21:02 > 0:21:09The painting is the mirror of, er...time.
0:21:10 > 0:21:12It must be mad
0:21:12 > 0:21:15to have the true image of what time is.
0:21:18 > 0:21:21Those subversive undertones are also there in the work
0:21:21 > 0:21:24of the Belgian artist Rene Magritte.
0:21:24 > 0:21:26It's easy to forget now that these readily-reproduced,
0:21:26 > 0:21:30easy-on-the-eye images contain their own brand of revolution.
0:21:30 > 0:21:34His paintings showed everyday things that we can all understand
0:21:34 > 0:21:37and, at the same time, we know to be impossible.
0:21:39 > 0:21:42He said, "The mind loves the unknown.
0:21:42 > 0:21:46"It loves images whose meaning is unknown,
0:21:46 > 0:21:49"since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown."
0:21:49 > 0:21:53In this 1965 BBC documentary,
0:21:53 > 0:21:55Magritte seems to enjoy playing the part of
0:21:55 > 0:21:58the bowler-hatted businessman he so often painted,
0:21:58 > 0:22:01but the presenter has rumbled his disguise.
0:22:01 > 0:22:03He's a secret agent.
0:22:03 > 0:22:07His object - to discredit bourgeois reality.
0:22:07 > 0:22:08Like all saboteurs,
0:22:08 > 0:22:12he avoids detection by dressing and behaving just like everybody else.
0:22:45 > 0:22:47His keen eye for the absurd was drawn to the relationship
0:22:47 > 0:22:50between objects, words and images.
0:22:50 > 0:22:53His most famous painting of all, The Treachery of Images,
0:22:53 > 0:22:57shows a picture of a pipe with the words written underneath
0:22:57 > 0:23:01reminding you, "This is not a pipe, it's just a picture of a pipe".
0:23:02 > 0:23:06Sometimes, he puts a picture in place of a word.
0:23:06 > 0:23:11So this sentence reads, "I do not see the woman hidden in the forest".
0:23:11 > 0:23:13At other points, he labels images
0:23:13 > 0:23:15with the wrong words entirely.
0:23:18 > 0:23:21By untethering objects from their labels,
0:23:21 > 0:23:24or upsetting the rules of reality,
0:23:24 > 0:23:28Magritte's work tries to undermine the very idea
0:23:28 > 0:23:31that one can impose logic and order on the world.
0:23:33 > 0:23:34It's a bit unsettling.
0:23:36 > 0:23:40I enjoy Magritte's illusions and the games he plays with our mind.
0:23:40 > 0:23:45It's just a pity the way he depicts women seems so stark.
0:23:45 > 0:23:48Is there any place for me in an art movement
0:23:48 > 0:23:50who thinks of women like this?
0:23:52 > 0:23:55Ghislaine Wood is a curator who's also a bit uncomfortable
0:23:55 > 0:23:57about Surrealism's seedy side.
0:23:57 > 0:24:01I'm hoping she can show me how a good feminist can enjoy
0:24:01 > 0:24:03a guilt-free relationship with Surrealism.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08The difficulty with a lot of Surrealism in its earliest phase
0:24:08 > 0:24:12was that it was very male-dominated and it was very patriarchal.
0:24:12 > 0:24:15And a number of the male Surrealists had problems with that,
0:24:15 > 0:24:18as well as a number of the women.
0:24:18 > 0:24:21There has to be a bit of licence, I think, for the historical period, as well.
0:24:21 > 0:24:24- Oh, sure, sure.- That perhaps feminism as we understand it now
0:24:24 > 0:24:26didn't really exist then.
0:24:26 > 0:24:30For many of the Surrealists, women become a conduit to something else.
0:24:30 > 0:24:33- Yeah.- And women were perceived as being closer to nature,
0:24:33 > 0:24:36closer to this idea of childhood,
0:24:36 > 0:24:39these ideas that really fascinated the Surrealists.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41And that's why women are such a common subject matter.
0:24:41 > 0:24:43In some respects, you could argue
0:24:43 > 0:24:45that women ARE the subject matter of Surrealism.
0:24:45 > 0:24:48And I think one of the most interesting subject matters,
0:24:48 > 0:24:51certainly in the late '30s, is the idea of the mannequin.
0:24:51 > 0:24:53So, for instance, here,
0:24:53 > 0:24:55we've got Andre Masson's Mannequin
0:24:55 > 0:24:58from the Surrealist Exposition in Paris in 1938,
0:24:58 > 0:25:01which was this extraordinary event
0:25:01 > 0:25:05where 16 of the Surrealist men all chose a kind of mannequin
0:25:05 > 0:25:08and then dressed it up, um...
0:25:08 > 0:25:11- you know, sort of created objects from mannequins...- Yeah.
0:25:11 > 0:25:12..that were very different
0:25:12 > 0:25:15and were really sort of seen as being quite shocking at the time.
0:25:15 > 0:25:19In fact, Man Ray talked about them as women and them being raped
0:25:19 > 0:25:22and violated by the Surrealist men.
0:25:22 > 0:25:26She looks like she's actually gagged or something here.
0:25:26 > 0:25:29She's got a scarf or something around her mouth.
0:25:29 > 0:25:32She is, yeah, she's gagged and her head is put into a cage.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35In some respects, it's the ultimate image of objectification.
0:25:35 > 0:25:37It is quite extraordinary. There's a sort of, you know,
0:25:37 > 0:25:40quite feminine moment of putting the pansy over the mouth.
0:25:40 > 0:25:44So very erotic, you know, the idea of the mouth being an erotic zone.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47But it was one of the most powerful images from that mannequin alley
0:25:47 > 0:25:51and I think, really, did much to establish
0:25:51 > 0:25:54the mannequin as the ultimate sort of Surrealist object.
0:25:54 > 0:25:56And then, of course, it moves on into much more
0:25:56 > 0:25:59disturbing territory with someone like Hans Bellmer
0:25:59 > 0:26:03who, of course, um...dismembers the mannequins,
0:26:03 > 0:26:06- puts them together in all sorts of new ways.- They just become composite parts.
0:26:06 > 0:26:10Yeah. And with very disturbing sort of overtones of violence,
0:26:10 > 0:26:14um...eroticisation and also, of paedophilia, as well.
0:26:14 > 0:26:16- Very often, these are children's... - Yeah.
0:26:16 > 0:26:18Um...you know, this mannequin wears children's shoes.
0:26:18 > 0:26:21I mean, they are very disturbing, Bellmer's.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25But I don't think we can be too judgmental
0:26:25 > 0:26:27about it being done for titillation.
0:26:27 > 0:26:31I think they were very bravely showing the inner workings
0:26:31 > 0:26:34of their mind without editing it.
0:26:34 > 0:26:36I think...
0:26:36 > 0:26:38- Yeah.- You know, when you do have...
0:26:38 > 0:26:41When one has sexual fantasies, quite often,
0:26:41 > 0:26:46you only think of a part of a body and the head doesn't exist
0:26:46 > 0:26:48because it's not with the person, it's...
0:26:48 > 0:26:52You know, in the unconscious, it can be completely objectified.
0:26:52 > 0:26:55And so, they were showing for the first time,
0:26:55 > 0:26:57that reality of the inner mind.
0:26:57 > 0:27:00Yeah. I think that's very true.
0:27:00 > 0:27:02I think they were trying to get to, you know,
0:27:02 > 0:27:07an essential representation of unconscious thoughts,
0:27:07 > 0:27:10um...no matter how disturbing that might be.
0:27:10 > 0:27:12Of course, women weren't just there
0:27:12 > 0:27:15as representations of unconscious thought.
0:27:15 > 0:27:18They were accepted into the movement as artists.
0:27:18 > 0:27:24Did they get accepted into the movement via the route of muse,
0:27:24 > 0:27:30then mistress before they are taken seriously as a painter?
0:27:30 > 0:27:34Can they come in as a painter, or a sculptor or a photographer,
0:27:34 > 0:27:37or is it like, "Oh, my girlfriend's really good".
0:27:37 > 0:27:39Well, it's a bit of both, actually.
0:27:39 > 0:27:42Someone like Meret Oppenheim is really interesting,
0:27:42 > 0:27:45from that point of view because obviously, she's this,
0:27:45 > 0:27:47you know, fantastic sort of model for Man Ray.
0:27:47 > 0:27:51A very beautiful woman who was photographed by him
0:27:51 > 0:27:55in a number of different shoots, but this one in the printing press
0:27:55 > 0:27:58is one of the most famous and extraordinary.
0:27:58 > 0:28:04The handle of the printing press is at her very sex centre, isn't it?
0:28:04 > 0:28:06It is, it is, yes.
0:28:06 > 0:28:08Almost disguising it, but at the same time,
0:28:08 > 0:28:10encouraging you to look at it.
0:28:10 > 0:28:14Here she is at the printing press and yet she herself
0:28:14 > 0:28:19is what is covered with ink, as though she is the subject here
0:28:19 > 0:28:23of a work of art, rather than creating a work of art.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26But, of course, she then went on and became
0:28:26 > 0:28:31a very important Surrealist artist in her own right.
0:28:31 > 0:28:34And most famously produced the fur-covered teacup,
0:28:34 > 0:28:37which is one of THE most iconic Surrealist objects ever created.
0:28:37 > 0:28:41And it was exhibited in the first Surrealist object exhibition
0:28:41 > 0:28:43in Paris in 1936.
0:28:43 > 0:28:47And it is an extraordinary work because it is so powerful.
0:28:47 > 0:28:49It's an extraordinary erotic object
0:28:49 > 0:28:51and kind of comes to represent the idea of woman.
0:28:51 > 0:28:54Of course, the fur-covered spoon is put into the cavity,
0:28:54 > 0:28:57it penetrates the cavity of the teacup.
0:28:57 > 0:28:59The teacup, as you put it to mouth, is like, you know,
0:28:59 > 0:29:01touching a woman's, you know...
0:29:01 > 0:29:02- Fanny.- Fanny. Exactly.
0:29:02 > 0:29:06So, you know, it's this object that works in all sorts of
0:29:06 > 0:29:09extraordinary ways and created by a woman.
0:29:09 > 0:29:12Oppenheim spoke later on about where she got her inspiration.
0:29:38 > 0:29:42Wherever it came from, Meret Oppenheim made some
0:29:42 > 0:29:45striking and extraordinary examples of Surrealist sculpture.
0:29:48 > 0:29:52The idea of making sculpture from found objects
0:29:52 > 0:29:54was not a Surrealist invention,
0:29:54 > 0:29:56but they applied their ideas of chance
0:29:56 > 0:30:00and the juxtaposition of incongruous things to the art of the readymade.
0:30:00 > 0:30:03As early as 1921,
0:30:03 > 0:30:08Man Ray had begun making sculptures with combinations of things.
0:30:08 > 0:30:12I pick something which in itself has no meaning at all,
0:30:12 > 0:30:15but I combine it with a second element.
0:30:15 > 0:30:19In the early days in Paris when I first came over and I passed by
0:30:19 > 0:30:24a hardware shop and I saw a flag iron in the window, I said,
0:30:24 > 0:30:27"There's an object which is almost invisible -
0:30:27 > 0:30:29"maybe I could do something with that."
0:30:29 > 0:30:33What could I do is to add something in it that was provocative,
0:30:33 > 0:30:37so I got a box of tacks and glued on a row of tacks to it,
0:30:37 > 0:30:40to make it useless, as I thought.
0:30:40 > 0:30:42But nothing is really useless.
0:30:42 > 0:30:47You can always find a use even for the most extravagant object.
0:30:48 > 0:30:54I disregard completely the aesthetic quality of the object.
0:30:54 > 0:30:56I'm against craftsmanship.
0:30:56 > 0:31:00They say the world is full of wonderful craftsmen,
0:31:00 > 0:31:03but there are very few practical dreamers.
0:31:05 > 0:31:08'To make my own Surrealist object,
0:31:08 > 0:31:11'I've picked one of the most practical dreamers I know -
0:31:11 > 0:31:15'the writer and improvisation teacher John-Paul Flintoff.'
0:31:15 > 0:31:17The horns are quite phallic, aren't they?
0:31:17 > 0:31:18There's a lot of power in that thing.
0:31:18 > 0:31:21This is very powerful, the whole thing.
0:31:21 > 0:31:24'We've come to the Surrealists' old stomping ground.'
0:31:24 > 0:31:25Oh, whoa!
0:31:25 > 0:31:28'The flea markets north of Paris.'
0:31:28 > 0:31:30Oh, look - this is good.
0:31:30 > 0:31:36- A mechanism for making a thing happen.- Oh!- More things go in.
0:31:36 > 0:31:38It's the reverse of what you expect. They don't fall out.
0:31:38 > 0:31:41Really feeling the letters. I've got to have some letters.
0:31:41 > 0:31:43I think letters are really important.
0:31:45 > 0:31:47The power of the Surrealist objects
0:31:47 > 0:31:49is often in their surprising combination
0:31:49 > 0:31:51of the domestic and the wild,
0:31:51 > 0:31:54making everyday things into objects of threat or desire.
0:31:56 > 0:32:00It's perfect, and you can unscrew all this and screw other things on!
0:32:00 > 0:32:04- Quarante-trois. Quarante-trois.- Conclu.
0:32:04 > 0:32:06- Ha-ha-ha!- Yes!
0:32:08 > 0:32:10Look at that. Just look at that! You know what that is.
0:32:10 > 0:32:13- It's not difficult to work out. - Look, what is this?- I can't think!
0:32:13 > 0:32:16Is this speaking to you at all?
0:32:16 > 0:32:18HE LAUGHS Oh, look - more ladies!
0:32:18 > 0:32:21Oh, lots of ladies.
0:32:21 > 0:32:24- Great implement of torture. - It's great, isn't it?
0:32:24 > 0:32:28If that had our doorknobs on it, it would be a face enclosed by...
0:32:28 > 0:32:30It's so good, actually.
0:32:30 > 0:32:31It's so good.
0:32:31 > 0:32:35Look, we've got to make something with all these things we've bought.
0:32:35 > 0:32:38- Let's do it.- OK. This looks like a good, empty space.
0:32:38 > 0:32:41No-one will mind if we start assembling this stuff here.
0:32:46 > 0:32:49Are you happy with the ladies being like this?
0:32:49 > 0:32:52Yeah, I think they look like they're having a really nice time.
0:32:54 > 0:32:58- I'd like to break the plate inside the handbag.- Go on, then.
0:33:00 > 0:33:04That's it. That's what we want. Little bits.
0:33:05 > 0:33:09You know what, I'm actually getting sort of carried away,
0:33:09 > 0:33:12- in a funny way now. - Yeah, I'm really enjoying this.
0:33:12 > 0:33:14- Are you feeling that as well? - Totally.
0:33:18 > 0:33:22Whether you make anything good or not, it's not really the point.
0:33:22 > 0:33:24'Man Ray thought the same.'
0:33:24 > 0:33:27I've never been able to finish a detective story
0:33:27 > 0:33:30because I don't give a hag who was the murderer.
0:33:30 > 0:33:33Oh, no. It doesn't interest me at all.
0:33:33 > 0:33:34It's the process -
0:33:34 > 0:33:36the mental process that's involved that interests me.
0:33:42 > 0:33:45Process was key to them.
0:33:45 > 0:33:48Max Ernst wrote later about how difficult it was at the start
0:33:48 > 0:33:51for painters and sculptors to find ways of working
0:33:51 > 0:33:54that fitted Breton's vision of Surrealism.
0:33:54 > 0:33:56For some, the answer came
0:33:56 > 0:33:59in literally taking a knife to the everyday -
0:33:59 > 0:34:01cutting it into new visions of the world.
0:34:01 > 0:34:03In the early '20s,
0:34:03 > 0:34:07Ernst's fellow Dada artist Hannah Hoch made collages of images
0:34:07 > 0:34:09and texts from the mass media
0:34:09 > 0:34:12as a tool to critique the German Weimar government.
0:34:12 > 0:34:16Ernst had developed his own knack of combining found images
0:34:16 > 0:34:20from encyclopaedia, department store catalogues and popular novels
0:34:20 > 0:34:23to create an unsettling world that was grounded in the familiar
0:34:23 > 0:34:25but rendered new and strange.
0:34:28 > 0:34:31Like found sculpture, his collages
0:34:31 > 0:34:34worked to disrupt hierarchy and logic.
0:34:34 > 0:34:38The images from high and low culture were mixed up together,
0:34:38 > 0:34:40all cut loose from their original meaning.
0:34:43 > 0:34:46He invented the idea of a sort of collage novel.
0:34:46 > 0:34:51The last of these, Une Semaine de Bonte - A Week Of Kindness -
0:34:51 > 0:34:54is a favourite of the English conceptual artist, John Stezaker,
0:34:54 > 0:34:58who's built his own work around collage from found photographs.
0:34:58 > 0:35:03I had a postcard collection ever since I was a young teenager,
0:35:03 > 0:35:07and when I started to find film stills in the mid '70s,
0:35:07 > 0:35:09it was obvious, I had these two collections -
0:35:09 > 0:35:12to put a postcard on top of the film still seemed absolutely magical.
0:35:12 > 0:35:15It was a moment in which I suddenly thought, "A-ha! Yes!
0:35:15 > 0:35:16"It works perfectly."
0:35:17 > 0:35:21What do you think Ernst is trying to do in Une Semaine de Bonte?
0:35:21 > 0:35:25Do you think it's something about...he was taking
0:35:25 > 0:35:30Edwardian and Victorian imagery from prints and stuff
0:35:30 > 0:35:33and by cutting it up, was he trying to cut up the old world order
0:35:33 > 0:35:36- and create something new? - I imagine they probably were.
0:35:36 > 0:35:39So they come from a world that was before he was born,
0:35:39 > 0:35:40and I find that...
0:35:40 > 0:35:42I'm attracted in a similar way to the 1940s,
0:35:42 > 0:35:44the world before I was born,
0:35:44 > 0:35:48and I think there is an interest in old or obsolete images
0:35:48 > 0:35:53which relates to it belonging to a world you haven't experienced.
0:35:53 > 0:35:56But it's just before so you're always curious about it.
0:35:56 > 0:35:59There's definitely something Oedipal about it. I think you're right.
0:35:59 > 0:36:03I think it is about tearing up the world order.
0:36:03 > 0:36:06Funnily enough, I hardly ever dream.
0:36:06 > 0:36:07I know all these people say,
0:36:07 > 0:36:09"Oh, you mean you don't remember your dreams."
0:36:09 > 0:36:11After a spell in hospital
0:36:11 > 0:36:14I found I was having these incredibly intense dreams,
0:36:14 > 0:36:17and these were the response in a sense
0:36:17 > 0:36:20to this new power of the dream,
0:36:20 > 0:36:23and somehow the dream world and the cinema world
0:36:23 > 0:36:28started to kind of merge with one another again, and I started...
0:36:28 > 0:36:30Funnily enough, it was kind of re-excited...
0:36:30 > 0:36:32re-animated my interest in Surrealism
0:36:32 > 0:36:34because of that connection.
0:36:34 > 0:36:38Do you see the dream world as real
0:36:38 > 0:36:41as what we think of as the real world?
0:36:41 > 0:36:43I think it's probably more real.
0:36:43 > 0:36:47- You're a true Surrealist, then! - Perhaps I am!
0:36:47 > 0:36:49Cos that's what they did.
0:36:49 > 0:36:52That's what surreality means - it means super real.
0:36:52 > 0:36:55It means as real as anything else.
0:36:55 > 0:36:58I like the idea of being a sub-realist, somehow.
0:36:58 > 0:37:00Going beneath reality.
0:37:06 > 0:37:09It wasn't just found images that appealed to them,
0:37:09 > 0:37:13but from the very beginning, the Surrealists used the camera
0:37:13 > 0:37:16as a tool to unsettle you from the comfort of your own perceptions.
0:37:16 > 0:37:21In a similar way to Magritte, they wanted you to see that the world
0:37:21 > 0:37:23you think you're living in isn't so solid, either,
0:37:23 > 0:37:27and it's already full of strange and marvellous things.
0:37:31 > 0:37:34Arno Minkkinen is a Finnish-American photographer
0:37:34 > 0:37:36who is still finding ways
0:37:36 > 0:37:40to use his camera to reveal impossible images taken from life.
0:37:42 > 0:37:46The most surreal things are attached somehow to photography.
0:37:51 > 0:37:54When you see something that you haven't seen before,
0:37:54 > 0:37:59the first expression inside you is one of astonishment and shock.
0:38:28 > 0:38:31Ah, it's really come out, hasn't it?
0:38:31 > 0:38:33Yeah.
0:38:33 > 0:38:36- This is all white.- Yeah.
0:38:37 > 0:38:42So it's right to my feet. I don't see the dock at all.
0:38:45 > 0:38:49So many of those great Surrealist women went from muse to model
0:38:49 > 0:38:53to maker of work in their own right, so I might as well give it a go.
0:38:55 > 0:38:59- Do you want my coat off for the drawing purpose?- Er...
0:38:59 > 0:39:02I mean, yeah, that might be better. Yeah, that's better.
0:39:02 > 0:39:04Yeah. Terrific. OK.
0:39:08 > 0:39:12Photography is to show us the truth.
0:39:12 > 0:39:16Reality is much more inventive than we are.
0:39:16 > 0:39:18We invent out of what we know.
0:39:18 > 0:39:21The photograph shows us what we don't know.
0:39:21 > 0:39:25What happens inside your mind can happen inside a camera.
0:39:26 > 0:39:28BIRDSONG
0:39:33 > 0:39:36OK. I'm going to fire from here...
0:39:36 > 0:39:37CLICK
0:39:37 > 0:39:40- Great. OK.- Hm-mm.
0:39:42 > 0:39:44- Are we done?- Yeah, we're done.
0:39:44 > 0:39:47You know, I might put some clothes on!
0:39:47 > 0:39:48THEY LAUGH
0:39:49 > 0:39:52- There is a sauna in there, if you want to...- Oh, is there? Right.
0:39:52 > 0:39:54- Yeah.- I don't know where I'm going!
0:39:58 > 0:40:02- More white. You can see the drawings.- Oh, yeah!
0:40:02 > 0:40:05- Oh, it really works!- It worked.
0:40:05 > 0:40:08And we have the drawing at this stage,
0:40:08 > 0:40:12where we can see the little cartoon character.
0:40:12 > 0:40:16- It's my inner child, isn't it? - Yeah, that's the child.
0:40:16 > 0:40:17SHE LAUGHS
0:40:19 > 0:40:22The greatest affinity to Man Ray,
0:40:22 > 0:40:25for me, is in his desire to see something new.
0:40:25 > 0:40:29Man Ray had developed a technique which he called the Rayograph,
0:40:29 > 0:40:31named after himself,
0:40:31 > 0:40:35where he placed the objects directly onto the photographic paper.
0:40:35 > 0:40:37The Surrealists admired the beauty
0:40:37 > 0:40:40of these images produced by relying on random chance.
0:40:41 > 0:40:43So it's going to be a Rayograph...
0:40:45 > 0:40:49This is wire, cos he likes wire. Wire.
0:40:49 > 0:40:52It would rattle a little bit like that, lift some of it up
0:40:52 > 0:40:55so that some of it is out of focus, some of it's in focus...
0:40:55 > 0:40:56That's beautiful.
0:40:56 > 0:41:01Wired out of magnifying glass, right in there,
0:41:01 > 0:41:04and we have this lovely Italian nutcracker here.
0:41:05 > 0:41:08We can put it right into the magnifying glass.
0:41:08 > 0:41:10See what happens to her.
0:41:10 > 0:41:15And, er, there could be this sort of a triangle there,
0:41:15 > 0:41:20just like...something. And we'll take the match...
0:41:20 > 0:41:22HE STRIKES MATCH
0:41:29 > 0:41:31That's the exposure.
0:41:33 > 0:41:36Now we take all these things off and we lost the picture,
0:41:36 > 0:41:39can never get it back the same way.
0:41:39 > 0:41:44I'm going to use my bare hands, cos this is real primitive stuff.
0:41:48 > 0:41:53And now the whole paper will be... Have a black edge, certainly.
0:41:54 > 0:41:57- Something's coming.- Yep. Oh, it's coming up.
0:42:00 > 0:42:02There she is, so there's the Rayograph.
0:42:04 > 0:42:07I love the wire going out of focus...
0:42:07 > 0:42:09Oh, no, it's not... It's the magnifying glass - it's wonderful.
0:42:09 > 0:42:10Yeah.
0:42:10 > 0:42:14So we take that out of here... I'll just put it right here.
0:42:17 > 0:42:21And now we can put the light on already. It doesn't really matter.
0:42:26 > 0:42:27And of course,
0:42:27 > 0:42:31you have the opportunity of doing these kinds of things.
0:42:33 > 0:42:39- He was a master of these edges, not just the centre.- Yeah.
0:42:42 > 0:42:44As well as stills photography,
0:42:44 > 0:42:47Man Ray was also experimenting with film.
0:42:47 > 0:42:52In this 1923 film Le Retour a la Raison - Return To Reason -
0:42:52 > 0:42:56he extended his Rayograph technique to the moving image.
0:42:56 > 0:42:58He sprinkled salt and pepper
0:42:58 > 0:43:01onto one piece of film, and pins onto another!
0:43:01 > 0:43:04But the most radical piece of Surreal cinema
0:43:04 > 0:43:07would come from a new direction.
0:43:07 > 0:43:11Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali had been college friends.
0:43:11 > 0:43:13Neither of them had ever made a film before,
0:43:13 > 0:43:17but both were desperate to break into the tight-knit Surrealist gang.
0:43:18 > 0:43:21They set out to make a piece of cinema that would match
0:43:21 > 0:43:26what they knew the Surrealists liked - random chance and dreams.
0:43:57 > 0:44:01They tried to make their film a collage of dream-like images
0:44:01 > 0:44:05and irrational associations deliberately without a story,
0:44:05 > 0:44:08using title cards to jump back and forth in time
0:44:08 > 0:44:11and disrupt any possibility of it making sense.
0:44:13 > 0:44:17The film premiered in this cinema in Paris in June 1929.
0:44:17 > 0:44:20The great and the good of the Paris art world were there,
0:44:20 > 0:44:22including Le Corbusier,
0:44:22 > 0:44:26Picasso and Gala Eluard, who would later become Gala Dali.
0:44:35 > 0:44:38MUSIC PLAYS
0:44:38 > 0:44:40Luis Bunuel said that when this film first showed,
0:44:40 > 0:44:45he was behind the projection screen with his pockets full of stones,
0:44:45 > 0:44:48ready to throw them at the audience if they hated the film!
0:44:58 > 0:45:01But much to his disappointment, they quite liked it!
0:45:03 > 0:45:05We are meaning-making creatures.
0:45:05 > 0:45:09When we are presented with a collection of disjointed things,
0:45:09 > 0:45:12our minds will always bridge the gaps.
0:45:12 > 0:45:15Even these art students that we showed the film to today
0:45:15 > 0:45:18couldn't help but try to make sense of it.
0:45:18 > 0:45:21There were definitely underlying threads and themes that went
0:45:21 > 0:45:22along with the whole thing.
0:45:24 > 0:45:29Kind of reflects the way that spring and winter
0:45:29 > 0:45:32are a balance of life and death.
0:45:32 > 0:45:35- I think it's about love.- OK!- Yeah.
0:45:35 > 0:45:38I wasn't quite sure what to make of all the different scenes,
0:45:38 > 0:45:40but I was looking for threads.
0:45:40 > 0:45:43Other than that, it was just... gobsmacked and confused,
0:45:43 > 0:45:44but I did enjoy it.
0:45:52 > 0:45:55Whatever its successes and failures as a piece of cinema,
0:45:55 > 0:45:59the film certainly succeeded on winning Bunuel and Dali
0:45:59 > 0:46:02their place in the Surrealist fold.
0:46:02 > 0:46:05After the premiere, they attended the Surrealist daily meetings
0:46:05 > 0:46:08at the cafe or at Breton's studio.
0:46:08 > 0:46:11One of the striking things about how to be a Surrealist
0:46:11 > 0:46:16is that you can't do it on your own!
0:46:16 > 0:46:20The group was tremendously important to the early Surrealists.
0:46:20 > 0:46:22They met every day,
0:46:22 > 0:46:25they shared their experience of their unconscious with each other,
0:46:25 > 0:46:28and I know from being a member of similar groups,
0:46:28 > 0:46:30albeit psychotherapy groups,
0:46:30 > 0:46:34just how intense and bonding that experience can be.
0:46:34 > 0:46:38Breton dealt with differences by chucking out whoever
0:46:38 > 0:46:42he thought transgressed Surrealist ideals.
0:46:42 > 0:46:45He tried to police Surrealism in so many ways!
0:46:45 > 0:46:48He said, "You can't design for the ballet,
0:46:48 > 0:46:52"you can't paint shit on trousers, you can't be a homosexual,
0:46:52 > 0:46:55"you can't take pictures of his wife, you can't be a Catholic..."
0:46:55 > 0:46:58He wanted to control their politics,
0:46:58 > 0:47:01their sexuality, their religion.
0:47:01 > 0:47:06But in the end, the big "can't" was that you can't police Surrealism.
0:47:06 > 0:47:10Hear that, Breton? You can't police Surrealism.
0:47:10 > 0:47:13What had begun as the outpourings
0:47:13 > 0:47:15of the unconscious mind of the artist -
0:47:15 > 0:47:18a series of experiments and processes -
0:47:18 > 0:47:23expanded into a dazzling mix of styles and techniques.
0:47:23 > 0:47:25All under the umbrella of Surrealism.
0:47:27 > 0:47:29When the Surrealists came to London
0:47:29 > 0:47:32for the International Surrealist Exhibition of 1936,
0:47:32 > 0:47:37the Great British public didn't know quite what to make of them.
0:47:37 > 0:47:40The world of dreams is a strange world,
0:47:40 > 0:47:42which most of us visit only in our sleep.
0:47:42 > 0:47:47The whole aim of Surrealism is to explore this realm
0:47:47 > 0:47:51and to bring it into relation with our daily life.
0:47:52 > 0:47:55Dali turned up with a deep-sea diving suit,
0:47:55 > 0:47:58all the better to descend into the subconscious mind,
0:47:58 > 0:48:02and the whole thing nearly ended in disaster when he tried to
0:48:02 > 0:48:06deliver a lecture from inside the suit and nearly suffocated.
0:48:06 > 0:48:09He was only rescued at the last minute by a poet with a spanner.
0:48:11 > 0:48:15Later, of course, he would become the grand showman of Surrealism.
0:48:15 > 0:48:18Indeed, at one point, he was arguably the most famous artist
0:48:18 > 0:48:21in the world, and he was rarely modest about it.
0:49:05 > 0:49:09Dali chose to execute his paintings in a hyperrealistic style.
0:49:11 > 0:49:15He was once a fervent believer in the artistic possibilities
0:49:15 > 0:49:17of tapping into the unconscious.
0:49:24 > 0:49:27This work, The Metamorphosis Of Narcissus,
0:49:27 > 0:49:30was the first example of his approach
0:49:30 > 0:49:32to painting the unconscious mind.
0:49:35 > 0:49:40You know when you see a paper bag and at first it isn't a paper bag -
0:49:40 > 0:49:43it's an incredibly detailed cat, and you're absolutely certain
0:49:43 > 0:49:47it's a cat - you think, "Oh! It's a cat - it's about to get run over!"
0:49:47 > 0:49:52And then your mind does a bit more processing and it's a paper bag...
0:49:52 > 0:49:56We've all had that thing when we see something,
0:49:56 > 0:50:02we're sure it's that thing or that person, and then it isn't.
0:50:02 > 0:50:07Dali was really interested in this first impression we get,
0:50:07 > 0:50:12which might be our lasting impression, but it's the one
0:50:12 > 0:50:14we see through this lens of paranoia,
0:50:14 > 0:50:19and he called this way of seeing his "paranoiac-critical method".
0:50:19 > 0:50:25What he's done here is like two images that look very, very similar
0:50:25 > 0:50:28but they're actually depicting completely different things.
0:50:28 > 0:50:32One's a thumb and a finger holding an egg with a narcissus coming up,
0:50:32 > 0:50:37and the other is the actual figure of Narcissus himself
0:50:37 > 0:50:40looking into the pond, but they look the same.
0:50:40 > 0:50:44It's trying to convey to the viewer that he wanted you to see
0:50:44 > 0:50:50that one shape could be both things or many things, indeed.
0:50:50 > 0:50:52It is showing us the unconscious,
0:50:52 > 0:50:56not because the movement of the painting or the brush strokes
0:50:56 > 0:51:00is an unconscious process like it is in automatic drawing,
0:51:00 > 0:51:05but because he's showing you the tricks your mind plays on you.
0:51:06 > 0:51:08In the summer of 1938,
0:51:08 > 0:51:12he took this painting with him when he went to see Sigmund Freud.
0:51:12 > 0:51:15Freud wrote afterwards in a letter to a friend,
0:51:15 > 0:51:19"I really have to thank you for the introduction which brought me
0:51:19 > 0:51:23"yesterday's visitors, for until then,
0:51:23 > 0:51:26"I was inclined to look upon the Surrealists, who have apparently
0:51:26 > 0:51:30"chosen me as their patron saint, as absolute cranks.
0:51:30 > 0:51:36"The young Spaniard, however, with his candid and fanatical eyes,
0:51:36 > 0:51:39"and his undeniable technical mastery,
0:51:39 > 0:51:42"has made me reconsider my opinion."
0:51:44 > 0:51:47These enormous efforts they were making to overthrow the conventions
0:51:47 > 0:51:50of society and find a truth beyond our lived reality
0:51:50 > 0:51:54had been taking place against a backdrop
0:51:54 > 0:51:56of the rise of fascism in Europe.
0:52:02 > 0:52:03At the end of the '30s,
0:52:03 > 0:52:06Europe was becoming a pretty dangerous place,
0:52:06 > 0:52:09especially if you were, in the eyes of the incoming Nazis,
0:52:09 > 0:52:12a degenerate artist, so many of the Surrealists came to America,
0:52:12 > 0:52:15especially here, New York.
0:52:15 > 0:52:18JAZZ MUSIC
0:52:30 > 0:52:34Art historian Robert Hobbs has written extensively about
0:52:34 > 0:52:37the American art scene in the '40s.
0:52:37 > 0:52:40How were the Surrealists received in America?
0:52:40 > 0:52:42Well, the Surrealists came in several different groups,
0:52:42 > 0:52:46but they were received exceedingly well.
0:52:46 > 0:52:50Andre Breton came soon after Paris fell
0:52:50 > 0:52:53and he was the great hope of Surrealism.
0:52:54 > 0:52:58Max Ernst came over and he ended up marrying Peggy Guggenheim.
0:52:59 > 0:53:04But mainly, the Surrealists mixed with very different circles
0:53:04 > 0:53:06than the American artist,
0:53:06 > 0:53:10and so they were well-accepted by collectors, you know,
0:53:10 > 0:53:14any number of people in New York, er...but the young artists
0:53:14 > 0:53:18- who were aspiring regarded them as old-fashioned.- Uh-huh.
0:53:18 > 0:53:20A bit fusty.
0:53:20 > 0:53:25They regarded them as not the most current avant-garde, even though
0:53:25 > 0:53:31the galleries and museums regarded them as the ruling avant garde.
0:53:31 > 0:53:34While the European Surrealists were busy swanning around
0:53:34 > 0:53:38at Peggy Guggenheim's parties, Breton's original ideas were being
0:53:38 > 0:53:41taken up by a new wave of American artists.
0:53:41 > 0:53:45I think when one looks at the abstract expressionists
0:53:45 > 0:53:46in relation to the Surrealists,
0:53:46 > 0:53:49one of the things that's very fascinating is the Americans
0:53:49 > 0:53:53did go back to the very beginnings of Surrealism,
0:53:53 > 0:53:57so rather than picking up Surrealism in the 1940s and saying,
0:53:57 > 0:54:00we're going to continue with late Surrealism,
0:54:00 > 0:54:03which they felt was out-of-date and old-fashioned,
0:54:03 > 0:54:05as I've mentioned before,
0:54:05 > 0:54:10they wanted to go back to the very beginnings of Surrealism
0:54:10 > 0:54:14to create a truer, more authentic Surrealism,
0:54:14 > 0:54:18and so the two really sprang from a common root, or common beginning.
0:54:22 > 0:54:25While the next wave of modern art was borne in response to
0:54:25 > 0:54:28Breton's ideas of pure psychic autonomism,
0:54:28 > 0:54:32a lot of the innovations they'd made in image-making,
0:54:32 > 0:54:34combinations of incongruous things,
0:54:34 > 0:54:38putting objects in impossible settings, wordplay - indeed,
0:54:38 > 0:54:42the whole iconography of that particular Surrealist style,
0:54:42 > 0:54:45was adopted wholesale into the world of advertising.
0:54:53 > 0:54:56Magritte had been an ad man in his time, and he understood the pleasure
0:54:56 > 0:55:00there is in connecting the dots, in getting the joke.
0:55:00 > 0:55:04What would Breton say today if he saw his ideas being used not
0:55:04 > 0:55:06to unsettle us from our bourgeois reality,
0:55:06 > 0:55:08but to sell credit cards?!
0:55:09 > 0:55:11The funny thing is,
0:55:11 > 0:55:15that these artists who tried to do everything they could
0:55:15 > 0:55:20to disrupt established ideas and to tear up social conventions
0:55:20 > 0:55:23were now mainstream celebrities.
0:55:23 > 0:55:24First, it dissolves.
0:55:24 > 0:55:27Happy bubbles, but dissolved bubbles.
0:55:30 > 0:55:35Breton called Dali "Avida Dollars", an anagram of Salvador Dali, because
0:55:35 > 0:55:41he seemed to have sold out and would do anything for American money.
0:55:41 > 0:55:44..so those beautiful places will be beautiful again.
0:55:44 > 0:55:49Alka-Seltzer is a work of art. Truly one of a kind, like a Dali.
0:55:52 > 0:55:55Watching him later, this look-at-me eccentric,
0:55:55 > 0:55:59it's hard to remember that he was once an earnest disciple
0:55:59 > 0:56:02of the movement, and it's a shame that for many people,
0:56:02 > 0:56:06the image of Surrealism has got reduced to
0:56:06 > 0:56:09that weird Sunday supplement kind of sexy
0:56:09 > 0:56:12and posters in teenage boys' bedrooms,
0:56:12 > 0:56:16because that is really the least interesting part of the whole thing.
0:56:18 > 0:56:22I think because of what has lingered of Surrealism, you know,
0:56:22 > 0:56:25the paintings of Magritte and Dali,
0:56:25 > 0:56:31people think that IS Surrealism, and it isn't - it's more than that.
0:56:31 > 0:56:34It's about discovering the unconscious.
0:56:36 > 0:56:39What was amazing when I set up the pop-up bureau
0:56:39 > 0:56:42was people off the street
0:56:42 > 0:56:46and how quickly they got to their inner realities and what
0:56:46 > 0:56:51they found out about themselves, you know, just in five minutes.
0:56:51 > 0:56:54It was incredible. So I imagine it was pretty mind-blowing
0:56:54 > 0:56:58for the Surrealists when they discovered similar things.
0:56:58 > 0:57:02I'm thrilled by what I've found out about the Surrealists.
0:57:02 > 0:57:04It isn't a style.
0:57:04 > 0:57:05It is a philosophy,
0:57:05 > 0:57:09and it's a philosophy that we might go back to from time to time to help
0:57:09 > 0:57:15us with our own discovering of our own outer lives and our inner lives.
0:57:18 > 0:57:22The Surrealists tried to tap into that huge wellspring
0:57:22 > 0:57:26of creativity that we have in our unconscious minds, and they
0:57:26 > 0:57:30did that in reaction to the crisis of world politics of 100 years ago.
0:57:33 > 0:57:38I can't help but feel that this art form, borne of troubled times,
0:57:38 > 0:57:41is actually relevant to where we are today.
0:57:46 > 0:57:48Looking around, it's no wonder
0:57:48 > 0:57:51that so many people think the world is a little surreal.