Long feted as the acceptable 'radical' face of the surrealist avant-garde and recently celebrated... more Long feted as the acceptable 'radical' face of the surrealist avant-garde and recently celebrated with an exhibition devoted exclusively to it, the magazine Documents (1929-30) is perhaps most closely associated in Anglo-American scholarship with James Clifford's famous definition of 'ethnographic surrealism.' 1 A heterogeneous mixture of cultures and concepts held at a point of irreconcilability, patched together with a collage of photographic materials, represents the principle of cultural relativism and a fundamentally anthropological impulse, in this reading. The difficulties with this concept have been outlined in responses by Jean Jamin and Michael Richardson among others, and I do not intend to repeat these here. 2 It is clear, however, that the afterlife of Clifford's term as a convenient summation of a wide range of ideas and historical circumstances has not helped its cause; that 'ethnography' and 'surrealism' by definition do not belong together was a crucial, if slippery, strategic feature of Clifford's analysis. Moreover, both surrealism and ethnography arguably only feature in Documents in modified forms: there are still those today who would question the presence of either surrealism 'proper' or indeed ethnography in the periodical. 'Surrealism' can have many meanings, as a term for a loose grouping of writers, for a body of texts and theories, for a 'way of life' and conceptual approach, all of which are arguably unconstrained by 'official' institutional boundaries. 'Ethnography,' on the other hand, was still fighting, in the late 1920s, for wide institutional recognition, and so much more was at stake in playing with its meanings and definitions. This was just one of the ways in which the two domains did not share the same point of departure in their notorious coming together in Documents. For a former surrealist poet like Michel Leiris, Documents offered a means to extend his intellectual activity into new areas and ultimately laid the basis for his subsequent career as a professional anthropologist. For the young anthropologist Marcel Griaule, the periodical was a site of experimental thinking, whose implications arguably needed to be tempered in his ethnographic practice in the 1930s and beyond.
The first full-length monograph on Bill Woodrow's sculptural work, based on original source mater... more The first full-length monograph on Bill Woodrow's sculptural work, based on original source material from interviews with the artist and including his critical reception in the art press in the 1980s and 1990s.
Published in Therese Lichtenstein (ed.), The City in Twilight: Surrealism and Paris, 1924-1939, F... more Published in Therese Lichtenstein (ed.), The City in Twilight: Surrealism and Paris, 1924-1939, Frist Center, 2009, pp. 79-101
Long feted as the acceptable 'radical' face of the surrealist avant-garde and recently celebrated... more Long feted as the acceptable 'radical' face of the surrealist avant-garde and recently celebrated with an exhibition devoted exclusively to it, the magazine Documents (1929-30) is perhaps most closely associated in Anglo-American scholarship with James Clifford's famous definition of 'ethnographic surrealism.' 1 A heterogeneous mixture of cultures and concepts held at a point of irreconcilability, patched together with a collage of photographic materials, represents the principle of cultural relativism and a fundamentally anthropological impulse, in this reading. The difficulties with this concept have been outlined in responses by Jean Jamin and Michael Richardson among others, and I do not intend to repeat these here. 2 It is clear, however, that the afterlife of Clifford's term as a convenient summation of a wide range of ideas and historical circumstances has not helped its cause; that 'ethnography' and 'surrealism' by definition do not belong together was a crucial, if slippery, strategic feature of Clifford's analysis. Moreover, both surrealism and ethnography arguably only feature in Documents in modified forms: there are still those today who would question the presence of either surrealism 'proper' or indeed ethnography in the periodical. 'Surrealism' can have many meanings, as a term for a loose grouping of writers, for a body of texts and theories, for a 'way of life' and conceptual approach, all of which are arguably unconstrained by 'official' institutional boundaries. 'Ethnography,' on the other hand, was still fighting, in the late 1920s, for wide institutional recognition, and so much more was at stake in playing with its meanings and definitions. This was just one of the ways in which the two domains did not share the same point of departure in their notorious coming together in Documents. For a former surrealist poet like Michel Leiris, Documents offered a means to extend his intellectual activity into new areas and ultimately laid the basis for his subsequent career as a professional anthropologist. For the young anthropologist Marcel Griaule, the periodical was a site of experimental thinking, whose implications arguably needed to be tempered in his ethnographic practice in the 1930s and beyond.
The first full-length monograph on Bill Woodrow's sculptural work, based on original source mater... more The first full-length monograph on Bill Woodrow's sculptural work, based on original source material from interviews with the artist and including his critical reception in the art press in the 1980s and 1990s.
Published in Therese Lichtenstein (ed.), The City in Twilight: Surrealism and Paris, 1924-1939, F... more Published in Therese Lichtenstein (ed.), The City in Twilight: Surrealism and Paris, 1924-1939, Frist Center, 2009, pp. 79-101
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