Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to leader André Breton, to "resolve the previously contradictory conditions of dream and reality into an absolute reality, a super-reality", or surreality. It produced works of painting, writing, theatre, filmmaking, photography, and other media.
Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. He is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. He has had an immense impact on 20th- and 21st-century art, and a seminal influence on the development of conceptual art. By the time of World War I, he had rejected the work of many of his fellow artists as "retinal", intended only to please the eye. Instead, he wanted to use art to serve the mind.
Meshes of the Afternoon is a 1943 American short experimental film directed by starring wife-and-husband team, Maya Deren and Alexandr Hackenschmied.
Maya Deren was a Ukrainian-born American experimental filmmaker and important part of the avant-garde in the 1940s and 1950s. Deren was also a choreographer, dancer, film theorist, poet, lecturer, writer, and photographer.
An underground film is a film that is out of the mainstream either in its style, genre or financing.
Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, particularly early ones, relate to arts in other disciplines: painting, dance, literature and poetry, or arise from research and development of new technical resources.
Events from the year 1966 in art.
The Art of This Century gallery was opened by Peggy Guggenheim at 30 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City on October 20, 1942. The gallery occupied two commercial spaces on the seventh floor of a building that was part of the midtown arts district including the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Non-Objective Painting, Helena Rubinstein's New Art Center, and numerous commercial galleries. The gallery exhibited important modern art until it closed in 1947, when Guggenheim returned to Europe. The gallery was designed by architect, artist, and visionary Frederick Kiesler.
In film theory, the term oneiric refers to the depiction of dream-like states or to the use of the metaphor of a dream or the dream-state in the analysis of a film. The term comes from the Greek Óneiros, the personification of dreams.
Surrealist cinema is a modernist approach to film theory, criticism, and production with origins in Paris in the 1920s. The movement used shocking, irrational, or absurd imagery and Freudian dream symbolism to challenge the traditional function of art to represent reality. Related to Dada cinema, Surrealist cinema is characterized by juxtapositions, the rejection of dramatic psychology, and a frequent use of shocking imagery. Philippe Soupault and André Breton’s 1920 book collaboration Les Champs magnétiques is often considered to be the first Surrealist work, but it was only once Breton had completed his Surrealist Manifesto in 1924 that ‘Surrealism drafted itself an official birth certificate.’
Anemic Cinema or Anémic Cinéma is a 1926 Dada/surrealist experimental film by Marcel Duchamp, made in collaboration with Man Ray and Marc Allégret.
Hannah Smith (1897–1960) was an American arts patron, philanthropist, and advocate for social change. Legendary for her salon parties, she enjoyed being the conduit for many unlikely meetings and collaborations. In 1938, when a significant number of European artists were fleeing Europe, she started the Hannah Smith Agency in New York City. The Agency represented a select group of artists and thinkers, embodying Smith’s knack for collecting artists and ideas.
The American Film Institute Award for Independent Film and Video Artists, subtitled and generally known as the Maya Deren Award, was an award presented to filmmakers and video artists by the American Film Institute to honor independent filmmaking. Named for the avant-garde experimental film artist Maya Deren, it was given from 1986 through 1996.
Non-narrative film is an aesthetic of cinematic film that does not narrate, or relate "an event, whether real or imaginary". It is usually a form of art film or experimental film, not made for mass entertainment.
Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict is a 2015 American documentary film directed by Lisa Immordino Vreeland about art collector Peggy Guggenheim. The film premiered on April 20, 2015 at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Ritual in Transfigured Time is a 1946 American experimental silent short film directed by Maya Deren. Like Deren's previous work, A Study in Choreography for Camera (1945), she explores the use of dance on film through the lens of commentary of societal norms, metamorphosis, and anthropomorphism. The film is notable for its disjointed storytelling and use of slow motion, freeze framing, and unique blend of stage dance and film.
Valse Triste is a 1977 5 minute experimental collage film by Bruce Conner set to Jean Sibelius's piece of the same name.
Ensemble for Somnambulists is a 1951 American unfinished experimental silent short. It was written, produced, and directed by Maya Deren. The film was made while Deren was teaching a workshop at the Toronto Film Society. Along with Deren the film was produced by M. Armour and D. Burritt and had cinematography by Graeme Ferguson and Bruce Parsons. The film stars Frank Ionson, Brian Macdonald, Hannah Winner, Cynthia Barrett and Terry Chapman.
Season of Strangers is 1959 unfinished American 16 mm black and white Avant-garde-experimental short film directed by Maya Deren.
