The Unsurpassable: Dada, Surrealism and the Situationist International

Fijalkowski, Krzysztof (2020) The Unsurpassable: Dada, Surrealism and the Situationist International. In: The Situationist International: A Critical Handbook. Pluto Press.

Abstract

This book chapter considers the widely acknowledged but rarely examined relationship between surrealism and the Situationist International during the 1950s and 1960s. As is well-known, the SI as it developed n France helped define itself by a strongly critical attitude to surrealism, from which it had nevertheless derived a number of its key strategies and theoretical frameworks; above all, the SI announced the cessation of all ‘artistic’ or ‘literary’ activity to move towards a position of critical activism. Less familiar is the extent to which the SI also emerged from specifically surrealist contexts, particularly the Belgian surrealist journal Les Lèvres nues, and for a brief moment sought a common platform for action with Parisian surrealist counterparts. As the events of May ’68 unfolded, connections between individual SI and surrealist group members continued to proliferate, offering a picture in which the two apparently antagonistic circles can in fact be seen as sharing territory, ideas and collaborative practice.

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