http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv3v8qjLSyU (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv3v8qjLSyU)
this is part 1 of 5, all easily findable after the 1st has finished, and is a documentary on Surrealism by Jonathan Meade...
Quotethe first use of modern art as a deliberate form of torture
:lulz:
Just finished watching the whole thing. I wish he had done more of the history and less of the surreal skits. Part 3 was almost all rubbish because of this. It's interesting how he points out that surrealism grew out of opposition of religion. How surrealism is a competing unregulated form of irreason. It's weird to think that surrealism (and Discordianism) wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for the Catholic church.
I'd have to agree that some of the surreal skits were unnecessary. Some of them were well done, but there was just a little too much.
I thought that his point about the Catholic church was less to do with opposition though to it (though it was in many cases exactly that). I think what he was saying was that the mythologising tendencies of Catholic culture made it "easier" for Surrealism to take root and flourish. That surrealism was fundamental to the artistic impulse in general, and found itself relegated to a mere "movement" because it measured itself up against the church.
One of the things that it put in mind of, though I may fail to word this correctly, was indeed Discordianism. The question of why (or how) Discordianism is so popular, relatively speaking, in the United States could be partly answered by an adapted version of this - That the fundamentals of Discordianism are an impulse in all of us to a certain extent, but that, like Surrealism, it gets better exposure and recognition in the form of a 'movement' in a culture that is quite sophisticated but relies heavily on mythology. The culture(s) of The United States (from an outsiders point of view, at least), seems very conscious of its lack of a long (European) history, is at times willing to create its own. There is not a clear parallel of course, but it struck me that there is something similar there.
More thoughts, perhaps, when I have had a coffee.