Surrealism and the Exotic

"Part documentary and part sustained critique, Surrealism and the Exotic is the story of the obsessive relationship between the Surrealist intellect and non-Western culture. Describing the journeys of wealthy young aesthetes across Africa, Oceania, Mexico and the Caribbean, it combines fascinating insights into the buccaneer mentality of early twentieth-century collectors with a comprehensive overview of the artistic heritage threatened by their adventures. Featuring seventy photographs of artefacts, exhibitions and expeditions in progress, it raises controversial questions about material desire, artistic representation and the exploitative nature of fantasy. Why were primitivist aesthetics considered so deeply liberating by an educated twentieth-century cultural elite? Was Surrealism's interest in exoticism really the act of cultural democracy that Breton believed it to be? Did primitive art genuinely hold some form of semi-occult power, an ecstatic sign to release the unconscious?" "This intimate portrait vividly brings to life the world of licentious hedonism inhabited by Breton, Ernst, Paul Eluard, Tristan Tzara and the notorious dissident Surrealists Georges Betaille and Michel Leiris. It is an unparalleled introduction to the Surrealist movement and to French thought and culture in the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s."--Jacket.