Surrealism is Dead, Long Live Surrealism!
Surrealism’s 100-year journey continues to remain relevant as a universal spirit beyond historical boundaries. With its impact on The International Surrealist Exhibition in the UK and Turkish literature, Feyyaz Kayacan demonstrates surrealism’s permanence and its constantly renewing nature.
It is difficult, if not unjust, to pinpoint a specific beginning and end when talking about surrealism, one of the most influential art and cultural movements of the past century. This is mainly because both surrealists and critics distinguish between the collective and organized movement known as surrealism and the surrealist spirit that underlies the artistic creation process. This distinction represents the difference between an avant-garde movement centered in Paris that thrived roughly between the two World Wars and an artistic stance, rooted in late 18th-century Romanticism, which became theoretical, artistic, and political during the first half of the 20th century, undergoing continuous transformation throughout the last century while maintaining its relevance. Therefore, when we talk about surrealism, we are not just referring to a movement that started and ended at a specific point in history; we are talking about a surrealism that has existed for 100 years, sustained by its dynamic and universal character.
Salvador Dalí, “Sueño causado por el vuelo de una abeja”, 1944. DALÍ: © MUSEO NACIONAL THYSSEN-BORNEMISZA
Like many avant-garde movements that emerged in the first half of the 20th century, surrealism can be seen as a product of World War I. Many artists, confronted with the fact that the world, which was once believed to be consistent, reliable, and explainable, was now unstable and unsettling, saw the same condition as applicable to modern humans’ inner worlds and their perception of reality. The 1924 Surrealist Manifestos, written by André Breton, which mark the official birth of surrealism, focused on the connection between modern humans’ minds and the reality they shared with their environment, a connection losing its balance and in need of restoration and renewal on a collective level.
Parallel to this, surrealism’s greatest ideal was to overthrow the socially accepted authority of reality and replace it with a vision of reality reflecting the individual’s pure, untainted, and uncensored thought flow. Literature and art were seen as the strongest weapons in this endeavor, and wide-ranging political, cultural, and artistic revolutions were regarded as part of this ideal, stemming from the literary revolution of 18th-century Romantics and Freud’s psychoanalytic revolution. As emphasized in the declaration of January 27, 1925, surrealists underlined that to prevent the suffering and destruction caused by war from ever recurring, every cell of humanity needed to be radically renewed, and the only solution was revolution in every meaning and aspect of life. At the same time, surrealism was never hesitant to turn its back on any movement it was influenced by or fed from, always aiming to look forward and remain independent of all ideologies.
Thanks to its unconditional autonomy, surrealism succeeded in becoming one of the most influential and enduring movements of the 20th century. One of the most important steps in surrealism’s journey towards becoming a universal movement, independent of any geography, ideology, or category, was The International Surrealist Exhibition held in London in 1936.
Joan Miró, “Mujer Rodeada por el Vuelo de un Pájaro” (Bir Kuşun Uçuşunun Çevrelediği Kadın, 1941). “MUJER”: © JOAN MIRÓ
The Surrealist Ghost, Boiled Threads, and Diver Dali
The International Surrealist Exhibition, organized by British surrealism pioneers Roland Penrose and David Gascoyne and hosted at London’s New Burlington Galleries, was the largest surrealist exhibition held at the time, featuring 54 artists from 14 countries. The exhibition not only introduced works by artists like Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, and Meret Oppenheim to the British art world but also presented several British surrealists to Europe.
As predicted, the exhibition created a complete scandal in the British press and society, living up to its surreal name. The performance artist Sheila Legge, known as the “Surrealist Ghost,” walked through Trafalgar Square covered in dozens of roses during the opening. Breton greeted the guests wearing a green suit and holding a green pipe. Salvador Dalí, in a diving suit, gave a speech titled “Authentic Paranoid Ghosts” while holding two Russian greyhounds on leashes with one hand and a wishbone with the other, speaking in a heavy Spanish accent and wearing the diving helmet, intentionally making it almost impossible to understand—this was clearly part of the intention. During this time, Dalí was almost suffocated inside the diving suit, but he was saved in the nick of time by his wife, Gala.
A young poet, Dylan Thomas, served as a waiter at the exhibition and, during the opening, served cups with boiled threads to guests. The exhibition shocked the British art world, the press, and society with its sensational performances, and, as Breton noted in his article “Limits not Frontiers of Surrealism,” it played a crucial role in surrealism moving beyond its Parisian roots and becoming a worldwide influence. This was, in every sense, a success. One of the outcomes of this success was the formation of the British Surrealist Group immediately after the exhibition. Although they were not as daring or ambitious as their French counterparts and failed to organize around a solid manifesto, the group created a short-lived but productive artistic space until the Second World War, offering guidance to young artists emerging from this period. By the late 1930s, the group disbanded as members scattered across the world due to the war.
Certainly, the disbanding of surrealist groups and surrealism’s inability to survive as a movement in the second half of the 20th century could be interpreted as a pessimistic conclusion. However, many artists and writers, such as Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, and Benjamin Péret, who fled Europe during the war and continued to individually carry the surrealist expression in their art without adhering to a specific group, are examples of how the surrealist spirit was preserved and personally interpreted to carry it forward.
Feyyaz Kayacan and British Surrealism
To revive the interest in surrealism, which had faded in many countries after the war, a declaration was written in 1947 titled “Declaration of the Surrealist Group in England,” aiming to announce that the remaining members would continue to pursue the surrealist ideal despite the challenges. Among those who signed this declaration was Feyyaz (Fergar) Kayacan.
In an interview for his book A Talent for Shrouds, Kayacan recalls how his mother wanted him to become a diplomat, but he saw his future in literature. Having taken steps in this direction from an early age, his first poetry book, Les Gammes Insolites (Unusual Scales), was published when he was 16. After leaving Paris due to the war, Kayacan moved to Istanbul and later to England. His subsequent poetry book, Gestes à la Mer (Steps Towards the Sea), was criticized by Stevie Smith when it was published. Kayacan was accused of being blind and deaf to the ongoing war, but after this critical review, British surrealists, including E.L.T. Mesens and Jacques Brunius, defended him in an open letter.
Kayacan, although finding some of surrealism’s rules restrictive, noted that his time with the British surrealists was highly stimulating for his creativity and imagination. When asked about the purpose of his poetry, his response reflected the influence of surrealist poetics: “To free myself from the absolutes of stagnation, to break free from the suffocating blinkers threatening vision and emotion.”
In this way, instead of fully dedicating himself to surrealism, Kayacan explored the literary potential offered by the movement, which helped him create a unique literary language. Surrealist imagery, such as “skulls as cruel gourds” and “barking handkerchiefs appearing in the middle of a fairy tale trial,” vividly conveys Kayacan’s impression of the war. Similarly, in Kayacan’s stories, surrealist imagination played a significant role in shaping themes of war, physical and mental destruction, belonging, and loneliness. Writing in Turkish in a foreign country, Kayacan mentioned the isolating but also liberating effect it had on him. This allowed him to explore themes of not fully belonging anywhere while pushing the boundaries of the literary universe and language he used.
Kayacan’s works from the 1950s onwards, such as Hiçoğlu’s Adventures, which describes a wanderer looking for a name in the streets like a Beckett character, and The Man in the Bottle, which tells the story of a man who begins to live his life inside a bottle when his hand declares independence, illustrate how surrealist imagination remained integral to his exploration of themes like loneliness and alienation.
Surrealism at Its 100th Anniversary
In his article The Inevitability of Surrealism, Thomas Samuel Haile emphasizes that surrealism is inherently subject to continuous change, and as the discoveries it makes influence the world, our perception of reality will continue to shape surrealism. He underscores that surrealism, just as it was inevitable yesterday, will continue to be so tomorrow. This statement beautifully explains how surrealism, despite the tyranny of time, space, historical developments, and societal dynamics, survives as a universal philosophy, refusing to be erased. Just as surrealism was alive before its time, it will live on after its time, constantly renewing itself and adapting to new conditions, preserving its relevance.
