The Chicago Surrealist Group was founded in
Chicago, Illinois
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, in July 1966 by
Franklin Rosemont
Franklin Rosemont (1943–2009) was an American poet, artist, historian, street speaker, and co-founder of the Chicago Surrealist Group. Over four decades, Franklin produced a body of work, of declarations, manifestos, poetry, collage, hidden hi ...
,
Penelope Rosemont, Bernard Marszalek, Tor Faegre and Robert Green after a trip to Paris in 1965, during which they were in contact with
André Breton. Its initial members came from
far-left or
anarchist backgrounds and had already participated in groups
IWW
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...
(calling themselves the Rebel Worker Group and putting out a magazine called the ''Rebel Worker'') and
SDS; indeed, the Chicago group edited an issue of ''Radical America'', the SDS journal, and the SDS printshop printed some of the group's first publications.
Collaborations and projects
The group played a major role in organizing the World Surrealist Exhibition held at
Gallery Black Swan in Chicago in 1976. As the name suggests, broader in scope than previous "international" exhibitions, it featured hundreds of works almost exclusively from contemporary participants in
surrealism from thirty-one countries.
''Marvelous Freedom/Vigilance of Desire'' was the name for the catalogue of the 1976 World Surrealist Exhibition. It contains a number of texts and reproductions, as well as a blueprint of the layout of the gallery, with the location of the different "domains" into which the exhibition was organised.
The Chicago Group has also collaborated on the surrealist issue of the journal ''
Race Traitor
Race traitor is a pejorative reference to a person who is perceived as supporting attitudes or positions thought to be against the supposed interests or well-being of that person's own race. The term is the source of the name of a quarterly magaz ...
'', and the "Totems Without Taboos" show at the Heartland Cafe in
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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. It sporadically publishes a newspaper entitled ''WHAT Are You Going To Do About It?'' and the journal ''Arsenal/Surrealist Subversion''.
The Surrealist Movement in the United States was started by the Chicago Surrealist Group as a means of including many of its scattered participants from coast to coast on collective statements and in collective activities.
Participants in the group's activities have included
Clarence John Laughlin
Clarence John Laughlin (1905 – January 2, 1985) was an American photographer best known for his surrealist photographs of the American South.
Biography
Early life
Laughlin was born into a middle-class family in Lake Charles, Louisiana. H ...
,
Gerome Kamrowski,
Philip Lamantia
Philip Lamantia (October 23, 1927 – March 7, 2005) was an American poet and lecturer. His poems were often visionary, ecstatic, terror-filled, and erotic, exploring the subconscious world of dreams and linking it to daily experiences, while s ...
,
Tristan Meinecke and
Franklin Rosemont
Franklin Rosemont (1943–2009) was an American poet, artist, historian, street speaker, and co-founder of the Chicago Surrealist Group. Over four decades, Franklin produced a body of work, of declarations, manifestos, poetry, collage, hidden hi ...
. As participants past and present have been based in cities other than Chicago, the group has never been strictly defined by geography, despite its name. The group has worked with others, such as
The Surrealist Group in Stockholm, with which it met in Chicago and
Stockholm in 1986, publishing the ''International Surrealist Bulletin'' No. 1.
See also
*
The Surrealist Group in Stockholm
References
Bibliography
* Rosemont, Franklin and
Charles Radcliffe. ''Dancin' in the Streets: Anarchists, IWWs, Surrealists, Situationists and Provos in the 1960s as Recorded in the Pages of Rebel Worker and Heatwave'', Charles H Kerr. 2005.
* Abigail Susik, ''Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work'', Manchester University Press, 2021, pp. 182-237
External links
''Chicago Surrealist Group''Review of 2002 Chicago Surrealist Group exhibition at Heartland Cafe "Surrealism Here and Now" at ArtScope.net"Links to International surrealism""Another Stupid War" (statement)Letter in ''New York Review of Books''
{{Surrealism
American surrealist artists
Organizations based in Chicago
Surrealist groups
Industrial Workers of the World in Illinois