The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas: Vol. 8 No. 1 (2014) - Table of Contents

“Manuel Álvarez Bravo: Surrealism and Documentary Photography” by Ian Walker, p. 1-27. 

“(Sur)real or Unreal?: Antonin Artaud in the Sierra Tarahumara of Mexico” by Lars Krutak, p. 28-50. 

“Surrealist Views, American Landscapes: Notes on Wolfgang Paalen’s Ruin Gazing” by Kent L. Dickson, p. 51-73.

“‘Don’t Forget I Come From the Tropics’: Reconsidering the Surrealist Sculpture of Maria Martins” by Michael R. Taylor, p. 74-89.

“‘Le centre du milieu’: Matta and the Exploding Dome” by Denise Birkhofer, p. 90-104. 

“Edward James and Plutarco Gastélum in Xilita: Critical Paranoia in the Mexican Jungle” by Irene Herner, p. 105-123.

“Review of Ellen Landau, ‘Mexico and American Modernism’” by Luis M. Castañeda, p. 124-126. 

“‘Surrealist Ghosts and Spectrality in Surrealist Ghostliness’ by Katharine Conley” by Martine Antle, p. 127-129. 

“Review of Roger Rothman, ‘Tiny Surrealism: Salvador Dalí and the Aesthetics of the Small’” by Jonathan S. Wallis, p. 130-135.

“Review of ‘Late Surrealism’: The Menil Collection, May 24- August 25, 2013” by Rachel Hooper, p. 136-139.

The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas: Vol. 2 No. 2 (2008) - Table of Contents

“Surrealism and Photography: Introduction” by Wendy Grossman, p. i-iv.

“‘Surrealistic and disturbing’: Timothy O’Sullivan as Seen by Ansel Adams in the 1930s” by Britt Salvesen, p. 162-179. 

“‘As if one’s eyelids had been cut away’: Frederick Sommer’s Arizona Landscapes” by Ian Walker, p. 180-208.

“Clarence John Laughlin, Regionalist Surrealist” by Lewis Kachur, p. 209-226.

“A Swimmer Between Two Worlds: Francesca Woodman’s Maps of Interior Space” by Katharine Conley, p. 227-252. 

“Remembering Anne D’Harnoncourt” by Valery Oisteanu, p. 253.

“The 1930s: The Making of the ‘New Man’” by Julia Pine, p. 254-258.

“Beyond Bridges: The Cinema of Jean Rouch” by Robert McNab, p. 259-262.

“Review of Kirby Olson, ‘Andrei Codrescu and the Myth of America’” by Éva Forgács, p. 263-267.

“Review of Sally Price, 'Paris Primitive: Jacques Chirac’s Museum on the Quai Branly’” by Kate Duncan, p. 268-272. 

Human-environment interactions in aeolian (windblown) systems has focused research on<br/>human’s role in causing and aiding recovery from natural and anthropogenic disturbance. There<br/>is room for improvement in understanding the best methods and considerations for manual<br/>coastal foredune restoration. Furthermore, the extent to which humans play a role in changing the<br/>shape and surface textures of quartz sand grains is poorly understood. The goal of this thesis is<br/>two-fold: 1) quantify the geomorphic effectiveness of a multi-year manually rebuilt foredune and<br/>2) compare the shapes and microtextures on disturbed and undisturbed quartz sand grains. For<br/>the rebuilt foredune, uncrewed aerial systems (UAS) were used to survey the site, collecting<br/>photos to create digital surface models (DSMs). These DSMs were compared at discrete<br/>moments in time to create a sediment budget. Water levels and cross-shore modeling is also<br/>considered to predict the decadal evolution of the site. In the two years since rebuilding, the<br/>foredune has been stable, but not geomorphically resilient. Modeling shows landward foredune<br/>retreat and beach widening. For the quartz grains, t-testing of shape characteristics showed that<br/>there may be differences in the mean circularity between grains from off-highway vehicle and<br/>non-riding areas. Quartz grains from a variety of coastal and inland dunes were imaged using a<br/>scanning electron microscopy to search for evidence of anthropogenically-induced<br/>microtextures. On grains from Oceano Dunes in California, encouraging textures like parallel<br/>striations, grain fracturing, and linear conchoidal fractures provide exploratory evidence of<br/>anthropogenic microtextures. More focused research is recommended to confirm this exploratory<br/>work.

When André Breton went to Mexico in 1938, he saw the photographs of Manuel Álvarez Bravo, took a set of them back with him to France and, the following year, published and exhibited them as part of his espousal of Mexico as “the surrealistic place par excellence.” That is the first reason why the work of Álvarez Bravo cannot be overlooked in the broader context of Surrealism. This circumstance, often cited, has rarely been analyzed in any depth and part of the aim of this essay is to undertake that analysis.

In New York in 1944, the Surrealist magazine VVV published two photographs of the Arizona desert by Frederick Sommer. They are radical images in their minimalism and intensity of attention to (apparently) very little.

Sommer’s immediate connection was with Max Ernst, who saw these pictures when he visited Arizona in 1943. Later, when Ernst came to live at Sedona, the two men influenced each other’s work. Yves Tanguy also visited in 1951 and J. T. Soby suggested that the ‘breathless congestion of boulders, pebbles and bones’ in Tanguy’s last paintings derive from his experience of the desert as viewed through Sommer’s photographs.

Even in Europe, where Surrealism was predominantly urban, there had been an interest in the extreme landscapes of desert or jungle. But while Salvador Dali transformed rock forms into bodies, the challenge of the desert as Sommer depicted it was that no such transformation was possible. In addition, there was a Surrealist fascination with the "terrain vague"—land which is formless, void of composition—and it would be intriguing to extend the idea to Sommer’s desert pictures, which equally irritate the eye with their apparent lack of organization and focus.

It was Sommer’s meeting with Edward Weston that led to his use of a 10 x 8” camera to create the intensity of these pictures. But Sommer’s sense of the violence of the desert was at odds with the positive way it was depicted by Weston or Ansel Adams and his work was written out of photographic history for a long time. It’s no accident that it was rediscovered in the 1970s, when the myth of the American West was subjected to a severe critique and it’s intriguing to also place Sommer’s photographs in a lineage that goes back to Timothy O’Sullivan and forward to Richard Misrach.

Sommer’s work stands then at the intersection between the photography of the American West and Surrealism - between Edward Weston and Max Ernst. But it is also quite unlike either and, in their unflinching gaze at a subject that is both intense and empty, Sommer’s Arizona Landscapes profoundly undermine the conventions of vision.