Cultures du Surrealisme

Abstract

As she states in the conclusion to this important new look at surrealism, Martine Antle uses the neglected media of theater and photography to review surrealism's multicultural aspects, showing how they are "fondamentaux pour une compréhension de l'altérité dans le surréalisme" (179). Antle studies how those surrealists who worked with theater and photography concentrated on the decentering of subjectivity, calling into question assumptions about sexuality and Eurocentrism. Under Antle's critical gaze the surrealist movement becomes a plural cultural phenomenon as it emerges from "l'élitisme culturel dans lequel il a été souvent cantonné par les historiens de la littérature" and proves itself to be enduring as a veritable "tremplin de courants contestataires" (180; 183).