The Subversion of Images
Surrealism, Photography, and Film
27 February – 24 May 2010
Fotomuseum Winterthur
Grüzenstrasse 44+45
CH-8400 Winterthur (Zurich)
Switzerland
Phone: +41 52 234 10 60
The formal language of Surrealism has long since found its way into everyday life via fashion, advertising, and the media. Today the term Surrealism brings together everything that appears magical, dream-like, and incomprehensible. It is often forgotten that the Surrealists were artists and writers who worked very incisively toward changing the world and gaining self-knowledge and who also reflected critically on social-political questions. The surrealist avant-garde considered itself to be a revolutionary countermovement to the bourgeois system of values. Through new imagery, they investigated existence during the interwar period, a time of great social and political instability, and they deconstructed received ways of seeing and thinking through various artistic strategies. Photography seemed to best fulfill the Surrealists’ needs as their medium of choice.
The title “Subversion of Images”, given to a photo series by Paul Nougé by the Belgian Surrealist Marcel Mariën, is intended to inspire reflection. For the Surrealists, the challenge was certainly to overthrow images, and in this way to alter forms of representation. Yet it is equally – and perhaps even more so – about overthrowing through images, confusing the existing conditions of reality. “Over time the true revolutions,” Breton wrote, “will be carried out through the power of images.”
The survey exhibition is organized by the Centre Pompidou in Paris and shown in collaboration with the Fundación Mapfre, Madrid, and the Fotomuseum Winterthur. The Fotomuseum Winterthur is this exhibition’s only stop in the German-speaking area. The curators are Quentin Bajac, Clément Chéroux, Guillaume Le Gall, Philippe-Alain Michaud and Michel Poivert.
Main sponsors of the exhibition: Swiss Re / Vontobel Foundation
A comprehensive catalogue on the exhibition is available (French with a German booklet):
La Subversion des images – Surréalisme, Photographie, Film containing essays by Quentin Bajac, Clément Chéroux, Guillaume Le Gall, Philippe-Alain Michaud and Michel Poivert and a chronology by Emmanuelle Etchecopar-Etchart. Published by Centre Pompidou, Paris (Ed. Clément Chéroux, Quentin Bajac). Hardcover, format 25 x 30,7 cm, 480 pages, approx. 500 illustrations.
In addition, the Fotomuseum Winterthur publishes all essays and the chronology in German in the form of a bound booklet. 68 pages, no illustrations.
For further information please visit our website: www.fotomuseum.ch
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Fotomuseum Winterthur
Grüzenstrasse 44+45
CH-8400 Winterthur (Zurich)
Switzerland
Phone: +41 52 234 10 60
Fax: +41 52 233 60 97
e-mail: fotomuseum@fotomuseum.ch
Opening hours: Tue – Sun 11am – 6pm, Wed 11am – 8pm, closed on Mondays
