surrealism and war gallery guide

8/10/2019 Surrealism and War Gallery Guide

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Happnings*July 3 to 19, OCCUPATION, Ongoing Workshop by Ehren Tool (Closed Sundays, Mondays & July 4),10AM to 5PM *

*Saturday, July 5, 4041 OPEN HOUSE, Open House with Ehren Tool, 10AM to 5PM **Friday, July 11, I JUST MAKE CUPS, Artist Talk by Ehren Tool, 6:30PM *

*Friday, July 25, FLASHLIGHTS & FILMS AFTER DARK , 7:30PM Flashlight Tour, 8:30PM Surrealist Shorts & Feature **Saturday, August 30, THE EXQUISITE CORPSE, Workshop, 3PM to 5PM *

*Saturday, September 6, SURREALISM & WARRIOR WRITERS, Poetry Reading, 3:30PM to 5PM **Saturday & Sunday, September 6 & 7, SURREALISM & WARRIOR WRITERS, Writing Workshop, 10AM to 3PM *

*Friday, September 19, FLASHLIGHTS & FILMS AFTER DARK, 7:30PM Flashlight Tour, 8:30PM Surrealist Shorts & Feature **Saturday, September 27, SURREALISM & WAR, Curator Talk & Round Table Discussion, 3PM *

*Saturday, November 1, SURREALISM & WAR, Closing Reception, 2PM to 5PM *

National Vtrans Art Musum

4041 North Milwaukee Avenue, 2nd floor, Chicago, IL 6064110AM to 5PM, Tuesday to Saturday, NVAM.ORG


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e Exquisite Corpe of the Unknown Vtran

#12

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The Surrealist believed there is an ab-

sence of meaning created by the structural

contradictions of modern society, which is

ruled by rational thought while dominated

by war and oppression. Furthermore, the

Surrealists believed that in order to trans-form this absence of meaning, individuals

and society needed to be freed from the

oppressive rules of modern society. Andre

Breton, World War I veteran and the

primary surrealist theorist, articulated

this position in a radio interview, ... in a

violent reaction against the impoverish-

ment and sterility of thought processes

that resulted from centuries of rational-

ism, we turned toward the mar velous and

advocated it unconditionally.a

It is this turn toward the marvelous

and the surreal that many veterans

make in order to create meaning out of

traumatic war experiences. SURREALISM

& WAR is a collection of veterans ar twork

that explores the transformation of this

traumatic absence of meaning through

the intentional and unintentional use ofSurrealist processes and concepts.

Automatism

In an interview with Stan Gillett about

SURREALISM & WAR he said, My whole

military experience, I can say, was surreal

... For example, just being in the military

marching around with hundreds of other

people doing the same thing, s aying kill

kill kill was surreal to begin with. And it

just got more and more surreal as Vietnam

came in to it. Like, for example, I think

we went over on Pan American Airlines.

We have hundreds of GIs all dressed in

fatigues ... sitting there, being waited

on, and going over to Vietnam with the

intention of killing people. That was in my

mind not realistic, that was surreal. It just

got more and more surreal. ... We killed

a man my first night. A little Vietnamese

person with a handgun stepped over all

the trip wires. We were getting ready t o

break ambush and here he was. Standing

right in front of us. There were four or five

of us in an ambush group. This grizzly

sergeant behind me was trying to teach me

the ropes, he was the first one to recognize

what to do. He stood up, shot a burst off

from his M16 and shot this man through

the neck. Then all our armament went outbecause we thought he was the lead of a

group. So we just blew off all our arma-

ment. Hours later, turns out he was the

only guy. He was probably visiting his wife,

trying to get back home. That was surreal.

I thought I would go insane.

Gilletts reflections align well with

the Surrealist critique of a modern

society ruled by rational thought while

dominated by what he called insanity.

Gillett responded to this insanity with

the use of what the Surrealists called

automatismthe avoiding and rejection

of conscious thought in the process of

creative production.bIn discussion about

the work C4 Explosion (1) Gillett noted,

I would just shove and push things

around without the intention of making

something. I would look back at it and goWow, that kind of looks like what a C4

explosion feels like. So I put that title on

it. But I wasnt trying to make it, it would

just happen. Furthermore, C4 Explosion,

Jungle Outrage, and Self Violenceresemble

many of the Surrealists decalcomanias,

an automatism transfer technique with

unforeseen results. In these works the

abstract gray fields with clouded symbols

are not unlike the Untitled(2) ink blotted

decalcomania made by Andre Breton in

1936 or the decalcomania that represents

the nightmarish vision of decayed civiliza-

tion,Europe after the Rain, made by Max

Ernst in 1940.c

Surrealists experimented with the

subconscious with the hope that the

creativity buried deep inside someones

subconscious would be more capable

of transforming the constraints of the

rational mind. Despite this optimistic

view by the Surrealists, the subconscious

also holds hidden violent potential. Gillett

expands on this saying, When I think

of Surrealism I think of soft and gentle,

but that violent streak is in there. And

the violence would come out. I think the

violence is in our nature. They didnt

get away from the mind, they didnt get

away from World War I. The Surrealism

movement was kind of a knee-jerk awayfrom the effect of World War I. They were

trying to get away from war by viewing the

mind without thinking. But they didnt

get away from violence. Violence is in our

brain whether we are going automatic or

whether we are thinking about it. If they

were trying to get away from t he war, they

were not successful.

Gilletts own subconscious violent

memories materialize in hisPaddy

Bones (3) series. Gillett recalls, The first

man we killed in the patty, lying out

naked, dead. I can see that in the Paddy

Bones, looking back on it when I was done.

When we chipped it out of the investment

and looked at it, and Mr. Olsen [a fellow

Vietnam veteran and artist] said Man,

thats Vietnam. And I had to admit that

it was.

Collage, Assemblage, & Photomontage

In American society war is often

conceptualized as a heros journey but it is

actually the experience of dehumanization

on a grand scale. Pop culture perpetuates

the hero narrative through movies, televi-

sion shows, toys, cartoons, comic books,

video games, and advertisements as the

United States government, nonprofits, and

commercial industries promote campaigns

to honor our heroes. Societys narrative

is so powerful that it often overshadows

the lived experiences of war that do not

nicely fit into the framework of t he heros

journey. Military service is more often a

collection of juxtaposed divergent memo-

ries, and irrational experiences of trauma

that are without a clear narrative structure,

language, or meaning.

Meaning is created through the relation-

ship between two things. What happens

when a relationship between two things

can no longer be established? What hap-

pens when ideas, images, objects, bodies,

and memories are taken out of their

natural setting and reestablished within

new conditions? What new relationships

are established? What new questions are

asked? What new meanings emerge?Giuseppe Pellicano explores these

questions through the fantastic melding of

humans and animals in a series titled War

Pigs (4). Giuseppe reflects, the War Pigs

are hybrids. They consist of animal and

human together within a fantasy. Theyre

of these people that fuel war. Its time to

remove the humanistic camouflage of

these politicians or people in power and

try to reveal their a nimalistic truth.

Dadaists and Surrealists historically

used the fantastic and absurd techniques

of collage, assemblage, and photomontage

in order to challenge old relationships and

create new ones. Furthermore, automa-

tism is inherent in these techniques and

could be used to explore the irrational and

subconscious. The Surrealists believed

these techniques had the potential tocreate a new reality and subvert modern

societys obsession with rational thought

and perpetuation of war.

Ehren Tool directly pulls from these

ideas in his ongoing Occupationand

Cup (5) projects. During his Occupation

project, Tool occupies a public space

for hours and hours throwing cups on

the potters wheel before stamping and

glazing the cups with military iconography

pulled from military diagrams, personal

photographs, war toys, pop culture, and

military and political propaganda. Tools

repetition of the production process

becomes automatic, almost machine-like,

Surrealism and War

A Profound Clarification of a Historical Problm AARON HUGHES

This exhibition features work by veter-

ans of the Korean, Vietnam, Persian Gulf

and Iraq wars, as well as the peacekeeping

mission in Bosnia. They are contemporary

artists, none of whom calls him or herself

a Surrealist, and most are not particularly

well-versed in the history, ideas and work-

ing methods of Surrealism. So why does

their work feel so Surreal? Why do they

seem to share the iconography, thematic

concerns, and aesthetics of this move-

ment that they are so distant from in so

many ways?

For example, J. Clays Ghost Lifeand Bill

DugansHappy Valentinetake advantage

of collage techniques that allow them

to juxtapose images and objects that

wouldnt share the same time and space in

reality. We see distorted faces and masks,

as in Randolph HarmessRitual Suicide

Maskand Theodore Gostass Getting a

Headache in a POW Camp. There are

depictions of blindfolded eyes in John

McManussPOW Series, and disembodied

parts like Robynn Murrays torsos or Ken

Hrubys War Trophy. Assemblages com-

bining found objects, such as Josef Metzs

LZ Hurricane, harken back to D uchamps

assisted readymades, created when Dada

was in its formative stages. Artists like

Stan Gillett use experimental techniques

that force the artist to relinquish control.

And there are works that depict scenes

that seem like they must have come out

of a dream, like David Keefes and Richard

Yonkas paintings. These are techniques

and imagery of Surrealism. Why would

this be so? What is the relationship

between Surrealism and the experience

of war?

Surrealisms roots were in Dada, and

Dada grew, in part, out of a response to

war. In Zurich in 1916, when the Dada

movement began, the city was populated

by expatriates from all over Europe. S ome

were pacifists, some were anarchists, some

were AWOL, and probably some were just

scared, but all had congregated in neutral

Switzerland to escape the horror of World

War I. World War I had the terrible distinc-

tion of being far and away the most brutal

war the world had yet seen. They called it

the war to end all wars; today, looking back

at the many crushing wars that followed,

that almost sounds like wishful thinking.

Many of the artists who started Dada

believed that if European values and codes

of conduct had led their culture to the hor-

ror of World War I, then the only possible

response was a wholesale rejection of it

all. They were working towards a complete

break with their cultural past; whatever

the norm or convention, a Dadaist would

do the opposite. Sometimes the Dadaists

are dismissed as nihilists who were simply

against everything. Or as pranksters, act-

ing out with a gleefully adolescent disre-

spect and with no other goal than to shock

and disrupt. Yet underneath the rejection

and the disrespect there was a passionate

and earnestly ethical position. The early

Dadaists championed the anarchic and the

chaotic, nonsense and mayhem, because

it reflected their perception of what was

happening in the world around them:

atrocities, suffering, hypocrisy, and the

incomprehensibility of the traumatic expe-

rience of war. If conventions for both art

and public decorum were a reflection of a

set of values that had led to the things they

saw happening around them, then those

conventions should be thrown out. If the

rational could not help people make sense

of the horrors they had witnessed, then

the irrational should be embraced. Hugo

Ball described the Dadaists activities at

Cabaret Voltaire like this: ...every word

spoken and sung here says at least this one

thing: that this humiliating age has not

succeeded in winning our respect.1

As World Was I ended, Dada diss olved,

the expatriates scattered, and they carried

their Dadaist goals and beliefs and strate-

gies with them. Many of the Dadaists went

to Paris and were central to the emergence

of Surrealism. Their ideas and methods

evolved, yet many of the core impulses of

Dada remained intact. Like the Dadaists,

the Surrealists believed that the irrational

might sometimes express our experiences

and concerns better than the rational. The

thing most people know about Surrealism

is that the Surrealists mined their dreams

for imagery, but the Surrealists often used

the dream itself as a kind of catchall refer-

ence to all that was inaccessible through

rational means. In 1924 in the Surrealist

Manifesto, Andre Breton wrote, I believe

in the future resolution of these two states,

dream and reality, which are seemingly so

contradictory, into an absolute reality, a

surreality...2The Surrealists argued that

if we confine ourselves to the tangible an d

the perceptible, to our conscious minds

and waking thoughts, to rationality and

pragmatismor, to put it conversely, if

we dismiss or discredit the contents of our

unconscious minds, imagination, desire

and the irrationalwe are dismissing half

of what is, and impoverishing our lives and

experiences. Only when we reach a place

where we dont make distinctions between

all these seeming oppositeswhere we

take dreams and imagination as seri-

ously as reality and are as attentive to the

irrational as we are to the rationalwill we

have any hope of fully knowing ourselves

and the world around us.

Today, our culture is probably even

more dismissive of anything it sees as

subjective, unscientific, imaginative, or

illogical than it was when the Surrealists

were making these assertions. Yet there

are experiences that cannot be approached

with the quantifying and rational tools

our culture validates, and war is a quintes-

sential example of such an experience. The

Dadaists knew this 100 years ago and it is

still true for veterans who return to us from

war zones today. For those who live it, war

is still a confrontation with the incompre-

hensible. When the events of a war exceed

rationality, perhaps veterans must engage

with the irrational and the unreal in order

to find a way to approach their own experi-

ences. The Surrealists understood that

sometimes we can only achieve any kind

of understanding of our own experiences

by embracing imagination, intuition, the

nonsensical, and the dream. Maybe this

is why the work of contemporary veterans

who are not Surrealists is so Surreal.

1. Goldberg, RoseLee.Performance Art:From Futurism to the Present. New York: H. N.Abrams, 1998. p. 62.

2. Breton, Andre.Manifestoes of Surrealism.Translated by Richard Seaver and Helen R.Lane. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,1969. p. 14.

e Surrealists and War JEANNE DUNNING

Surrealism is the natural andinevitable product of historical forces;

it is not inspired, it is caused; it did notarise from sudden divine illumination,

but like every other valuable movement,from a profound clarification of problems

historically handed down to us by theculture into which we were born.

Hugh Sykes DaviesSurrealism at this Time and Place

1936


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William

Dugan

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BACKIN

THEW

ORLD,

AGAIN

(8)

PabloPicasso,FIGURE,1935

AndreB

reton

UNTITL

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omania)

1936

(2)

GiuseppePellicanoWARPIGS(4)

RobynnMurray,IN

DOCTRINATION(7)

RichardYohnka,ARCADEBARKER(11)

MaxErnstTHEANGELOFTHE HOME

ORTHETRIUMPHOF SURREALISM

1937(12)

ManRay,VENUSRESTORD,1936


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StanGillett,C4-EXPLOSION(

1)

StanGillett,PADDYBONES(3)

Eh

ren

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RaoulH

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Richard YohnkaDIRECT HIT (9)

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DavidKeekeRESORT(13)

DavidK

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MEET

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SCOU

TAND

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Toyen,

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Toyen, SHOT

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JimLeedy,THEEARTHLIESS

CREAMING&ATOMICHEA

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RandolphHarmes,RITUALSUICIDEMASK

ChristopherA

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and the resulting collaged cups seem to

pull directly from the history of Surrealism

and reflect the collage Cut with the Cake

Knife(6) by Hannah Hoch and ABCDby

Raoul Hausmann.

These disjointed collaged cups reflect

Tools fragmented military and veteran

experience. Reflecting on his experiences

during the Gulf War Tool notes, War is so

different than normal life. ... Its something

just totally bizarre. Standing in the middle

of the desert and seeing an explosion, and

then seeing the shock wave come and then

feeling it hit you in the chest, and turning

around and watching it go off into the

distance. ... Thats not normal, thats not

real. And then coming back to Disneyland

where nobody knows what youre talking

about, Oh, I saw it on TV! you know,

Great show! It feels kind of like youre in

a dream ...

These ideas are also reflected in Iraq

veteran Robynn Murrays triptych of body

cast collages,Indoctrination(7),Baghdad,

andHealing. The series represents the

arch of her military experience. In speak-

ing aboutIndoctrinationshe said, I used

materials from different army training

manuals ... If you look up closely youll

find manuals on how to salute. ... it shows

the beginning of me being put int o the

mold of a soldier. Murrays casts create a

void of the broken body now absent. This

void reflects the gap between the irrational

experience of war and the supposedly

rational society that perpetuates that war.

Vietnam veteran William Dugan was

also dealing with the transition from

combat to civilian life through assemblage.

Dugan reflects, Back in the World,

Again(8) is about how it felt to come back.

The pieces of bone, brass, shells, braided

in the creatures hair and hanging from

its belt, are tokens, mementos, souvenirs,

and transitional objects of our life. ...

When I got back, it was not what we all had

thought. Everything had changed. Our in-

nocence was gone, and we had memories

of things that you didnt really want to talk

about to people.

Memories, Dreams, & Nightmares

Vietnam veteran, Richard Yohnka, said,

There is the real and there is the dream.

You make art somewhere between the real-

ity of being and the reality of becoming.

Children often dream of the epic

adventures of the American military.

Fun, Travel, and Adventure was one of

the many Army slogans used during t he

Vietnam War. What happens when the

idealism of slogans dissipates and the

childrens games become the nightmares

of a war filled with irrational experiences

and emotions? What happens when thesociety dominated by rational thought can

no longer rationalize what is happening?

What happens when language loses its

meaning? What happens when rationality

becomes the irrational, the root of trauma,

the structure of oppression, and the his-

toric problem passed down? What happens

when traumatic memories, dreams, and

nightmares dominate the everyday?

In YohnkasDirect Hit(9),Positive

Identification (10), and Theres Plenty to

Suckhe depicts ripped apart figures with

exposed bones and loose skin through

vigorous pastel line work. In reflecting

on these drawings Yohnka notes, These

figures are the vehicle of my interpreta-

tion of the moments in Vietnam that deal

with the remoteness, transcendence, and

finality of life. They are silent screams,ritual destruction, intoxication, insanity,

sorrow, and death. They are images of

power, but also represent savage men.

They are caught between the image of a

soldier dehumanized by war and that of

man trapped in a state of raw self-conflict.

Throughout his work Yohnka continues

to depict his experience in Vietnam as

bodies in raw physical and psychological

conflict. He goes on to note, The physical

act of war contains many ingredients: the

personality of heroism, horror, a strange

glamour, destruction, and desolation. I

have internalized the experience of the

physical act of war and transformed it into

the metaphorical gestures of the human

form. The living form becomes a brutal-

ized icon.

In Yohnkas paintingsArcade Barker (11),

DodgeM, Scary-Go-Round, andShell

Gamehe depicts these brutalized icons

in vibrant colors as beasts with monster

heads, sharp teeth, and the bodies of men

in the uncanny environment of a carnival.

This setting is unnerving as it reflects the

excitement of childrens games trans-

formed into explosive nightmares filled

with anger and trauma. Furthermore,

in these works, Yohnkas human figures

have literally transformed into monsters

just as individuals in the midst of war

have the potential to lose sight of their

own humanity, snap, and transform into

irrational destructive beasts. These night-

marish scenes represent the contradiction

between what he called the ingredients of

war; heroism, horror, glamour, destruc-

tion, and desolation.

There is a long history of Surrealist

artists visualizing this contradiction

through figurative work. For example, in

one of his strongest political comments,

Ernst painted The Angelof the home or the

Triumph of Surrealism(12), a work that

depicts a nightmarish fairy that represents

the wave of fascism overtaking Europe at

that time. This same kind of gestural figure

represented in a surreal space can also be

seen in Ernsts 1921 painting, The Elephant

of Celebes.

Looking back into the Surrealist archive

it is not hard to find work that relates to

the contemporary dreamscapes of David

Keefes paintingsResort(13) andMeeting of

Dark Scout and Winged Boy (14). Less com-

mon is the specific haunting atmosphere

and sense of dread that Keefes paintings

evoke. However, whether it was inten-

tional or not, Keefes work harkens to the

work of the great Surrealist artist Toyen.

Working in the Czech and considered a

degenerate by the occupying Nazis, Toyen

made haunting landscapes that negotiated

memory, everyday objects, and the oc-

cupation. Specifically, Shot(15) a series of

drawings she made in 1939 to 1940, reflects

ominous landscapes and testifies to the

terror of the ongoing occupation and war.

The series depicts highly rendered deso-

late landscapes scattered with fractured

masks, skeletons, animal fragments, cages,

graves, and children resulting in surreal

and eerie landscapes.d

Keefe similarly creates highly rendered

surreal landscapes that do not reflect any

rational world but a world that collapses

time and space. Keefe said, My work is

about multiple historiesmy childhood

mixed with whats going on in my life

today. These different histories collide

in a timeless fashion. I start with certainimagery whether its a memory from child-

hood or an experience in Iraq, and all of

the sudden images and time collapse.

This mixing of time and space creates

a disjointed surreal world fraught with

unexpected objects, subjects, and emo-

tions. For example,Resortexternalizes the

hidden danger of the explosive death lying

just under the thin ice. Keefe continues,

I grew up fishing in Minnesota, and thats

whereResortcomes from ... an ice fishing

scene with me as a little boy ... but under

that ice are these bombs that I remember

from Iraq. The fish become bombs and the

bombs become fish. This lets me explore

and expose the boundaries between

reality and memory, between chronologi-

cally-lived experiences and simultaneity.

Fishing as a young boy and serving a tourof combat duty in Iraq converge at the

same time...

This collapsing of time, space, and

identity in Keefes paintings creates

relationships between traumas, objects,

and spaces that are irrational but reflect

real experiences and memories resulting

in hauntingly surreal landscapes. The

Meeting of Dark Scoutand Winged Boy is

again based on a specific memory. Keefe

notes, This little boy who I met in Iraq,

almost immediately in my mind became

me as a child. ... Its this meeting between

myself as a marine ... and meeting myself

as a kid, but also meeting this little boy

that I met in Iraq. And the images that

happen around me are the same images

that are recurring in my head. ... All of

these things continue to just cycle in

my mind and therefore I wanted to

recreate that.

This repetitive, perhaps obsessive, focus

on recreating spaces, objects, and subjects

from memories and dreams is also seen

in Jim Leedys workAtomic Head(16) and

The Earth Lies Screaming(16), a massive

skull and wall of bones, skulls, and geese

rising out of the darkness. The work is

based on a recurring nightmare from

his deployment to Korea. Leedy recalls,

There was a let-up in the war and I wentswimming. The water was calm and you

could almost see yourself in it. I jumped in

and swam out. I was amazed that I could

see my reflection. All of the sudden I saw

through my reflection and on the bottom

of the lake was rotting bodies, corpses,

just hundreds of them. It was a surreal

experience I admit. But it was a scary

experience. I felt like I was s wimming in

the rotting bodies. That had a big impact

on me and it was one of the things that

I had nightmares about for years after I

got out of the army. The making of that

wall and the skull head (Atomic Head)

emancipated me from my dreams, and I

never had a bad dream after that. I did not

enjoy doing anything with skulls after that.

It was Surrealism, and it was emancipation

from the fear and horror.Leedy was one of only two Americans

invited to participate in the largest

Surrealist exhibition ever assembled

at the Retretti Art Center, Finland, an

exhibition that began with Miro, Dali, and

Duchamp, and culminated with several

works by Leedy. However, he also would

not describe himself as a Surrealist. When

speaking about The Earth Lies Screaming,

Leedy added, I think of it as something

more powerful than Surrealism, something

more like Realism ... In the same s ense that

war is unbelievable, sometimes Surrealism

is unbelievable. But war is realism, and its

fact ... Its not dreamlike ... War is Realism

and my wall is Realism.

For Leedy, The Earth Lies Screaming

andAtomic Head are at once real, surreal,

and his emancipation from the fearand horror of war experiences. As the

haunting memories and nightmares began

to dominate his days and nights Leedy

began to obsessively work with s kulls

and bones as he sought out signs and

symbols, a language, to make meaning

out of an irrational experience. It is this

mining of ones own subconscious for

a new language beyond the rational

that is Surrealist in its approach. Leedy

bridges the divide between the dream

life and real life by making irrational

dreams into physical realities. Once he

had constructed the physical signs and

symbols of a new abstract language from

solid clay his experience was no longer

buried in nightmares but brought into

reality through the physical objects he

created. Leedy exploited his irrational,

nonsensical, and subconscious traumas

in order to build a new reality.

Conclusion: From war to Surrealism

Reflecting on the historic relationship

between war and Surrealism, Vietnam

veteran Michael Helbing stated, You can

certainly see why World War I turned into

Surrealism, in a certain respect. It took the

everyday normal and just totally upended

it and it made it screwed up, in the worst

sort of way. And war does that. To me at

least, youre trained to think and believe

and have certain awareness systems ...thrust into you and then you find out that

really doesnt exist. So then you have to

build your own world again, your own

reality, your own methodology to make

sense out of what makes no sense.

This process of making sense out of

nonsense evokes what Davies describes

as the profound clarification of a historic

problem handed down... Wars rupture of

modern society resulted in the Surrealists

profound clarification that rational

thought, which produced the systems,

culture, and machines that perpetuated

war and oppression, must be rejected and

revolted against. With this grounding the

Surrealists pulled from Sigmund Freuds

theories on the subconscious and the

political ideology of Marxism to begin this

revolt. The Surrealists continually exter-nalized the nonsense and contradictions

they saw in modern society because they

did not see these contradictions solely as

individual traumas to be transformed but

as political issues to confront.

Today, in contemporary American

society, the irrational experiences of war

and resulting traumas are framed as indi-

vidual psychological reactions to adverse

experiences. This use of psychoanalytic

theory to individualize the experience

of war also depoliticized it. Leaving the

historic problems that metaphorically and

literally explode in service members faces

to be reconciled in isolation.

SURREALISM & WAR is a rejection of

this isolation. SURREALISM & WAR brings

together an intergenerational group of vet-

eran artists to explore the historic connec-tions between the experience of war and

Surrealism in order to demonstrate that

the traumatic and irrational experience of

war, and the nonsense of the societies that

perpetuate war, are not personal conflicts

for individuals to resolve but a historic

problem handed down to us to revolt

against and transform.

a. Andr Breton, as quoted in RadioInterviews with Andr Parinaud (19131952) inConversations: The Autobiography of Surrealism.(Paragon House English, 1993) 63.

b. Gibson, Jennifer. Grove Art Online. London:Oxford University Press, 2009.

c. Gale, Matthew.Dada & Surrealism.(London: Phaidon, 1997) 391.

d. Durozoi, Gerard. History of the SurrealistMovement. (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 2004) 481.

Sketch for the exhibition poster by Jerome Grand


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The amazing NVAM staff including Executive Director Levi Moore, D irector

of Programming Sarah Eilefson, Gallery Coordinator Destinee Oitzinger,

Education Coordinator Christine Bespalec-Davis, Web Developer and

Multimedia Coordinator Patrick Putze, Assistant Education Coordinator

Lauren La Rose, Social Media and Communications Coordinator Georges

Toumayan, and 2013-2014 interns Lydia Wassman, Kayla Gerdes, Jonathan

Fenton, and Aireal Weber for their many hours of meetings, phone calls,

emails, exhibition promotion, and material development that made

SURREALISM & WAR possible.

The National Veterans Art Museum Board Members Ron Gibbs, Jim Moore,

Carol Sherman, Ken Nielsen, Mike Helbing, Nancy Ronquillo, Art Jacobs, Julie

Chavez, Phil Maughan, Caroline OBoyle, Becky Flaherty, Aaron Hughes, and a

special thank you to Board Chair Lionel Rabb for his vision and leadership.SURREALISM & WAR financial sponsors, The Rabb Family Foundation,

Illinois Arts Council, and The City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs

and Special Events. The exhibition would not have happened without their

generous support.

Aaron Hughes, SURREALISM & WAR Curator

National Veterans Art Museum Art Committee Chair

#12

The Exquisite Corpse of Abed Ibrhem Omran

Drawn by Anastasia D ouka, Jiyoung Yoon, and Yunyu Shih

Anastasia Douka wrote Abed Ibrhem Omran was a second lieutenant who died in t he

Tartous area in Syria on the day I was drawing the head of the exquisite corpse. The cause

of his death was a shooting. I found no picture online.

#13

The Exquisite Corpse of Alex Minsky

Drawn by John Henley, Lora Lode, and Colin Ewald

John Henley wrote Alex Minsky, a marine who lost his legs and whose skin was

burned in Afghanistan, who came home and suffered from alcoholism. He turned his life

around, covered the burns with tattoo s, and became an underwear model.

#16

The Exquisite Corpse of John Horse (Juan Caballo), 1812-1882

Drawn by Ryan Griffis, Hyla Willis, and Christiane D.

Ryan Griffis wrote John Horse was born of African and indigenous parents in 1812 in

central Florida. He would become a leader of resistance fighters composed of escaped

slaves, free blacks and Seminole allies during the S econd Seminole War.

#17

The Exquisite Corpse of Lt. Colonel Theodore Raphael D.D.S.

Drawn by his daughter Judith Raphael, his son-in-law Tony Phillips, and his great

granddaughter Zoe Gordon

e Exquisite Corpe of the Unknown VtranJEANNE DUNNING

SURREALISM & WAR has only come together with the amazing work,

mentorship, and support of so many inspiring individuals and institutions. The

National Veterans Art Museum Art Committee would like to especially thank:

The contributing veteran artists Chris Arendt, J. Clay, William Dugan,

Stan Gillett, Theodore Gostas, Randolph Harmes, Michael Helbing,

Ken Hurby, Kim Jones, David Keefe, Jim Leedy, John McManus, Josef Metz,

John Miller, Robynn Murray, Grady Myers, Giuseppe Pellicano, Ehren Tool,

Richard Yohnka, and the nearly 100 artists that contributed to the Exquisite

Corpse of the Unknown Veteranproject organized by Jeanne Dunning and

Aaron Hughes.

Jeanne Dunning for sharing her time, wisdom and energy to help build a

successful exhibition and organize a key contribution, The Exquisite Corpse

of the Unknown Veteran. Her vision and drive are what brought The ExquisiteCorpse of the Unknown Veteranto realization. Additionally, Jeanne provided

indispensable guidance on curating the exhibition and contributed two

fabulous articles, The Surrealist and War and The Exquisite Corpse of the

Unknown Veteran.

Jerome Grand for his beautiful and powerful design skills that were

generously donated to develop the SURREALISM & WAR graphics and layout

of the posters, pos tcards, and newsprint takeaway.

Jennifer Cohen, Mark Levitch, Jordana Mendelson, and Janine Mileaf for

their curatorial reflections and mentorship.

Mission Printing and News Gazette Community Newspapers for their

printing services.

List of Exquisite Corpe

Aknowledgmnts

The Dadaists (who we might think of

as proto-Surrealists) used to play a word

game that worked like this: someone wrote

an adjective on a piece of paper, folded it

so that the word he or she had written was

hidden, and passed it to a new player, who

in turn wrote a noun, folded the paper

again, and passed it to a third person, who

contributed a verb, etc. This continued

until, with the addition of a few articles

and prepositions, they had collectively

written a sentence. That this sentence

would not make much logical sense, and

would be characterized by non-sequiturs

and inexplicable juxtapositions, was the

point; by ceding control and intention in

the creative process the Dadaists hoped to

facilitate the emergence of a poetry that

none of them individually could ever have

dreamt of.

The Surrealists took up this game, and

after 1924 it came to be called by the name

of the protagonist that emerged in the

first sentence the Surrealists wrote when

they played it: The exquisite corpse will

drink the new wine. The Surrealists also

adapted the game to drawing. In its visual

form, one person draws the head and folds

the paper over it before he or she passes it

to the second player who draws the body

and then in turn passes it off to a third

player who contributes the legs and the

feet. The name exquisite corpse seems

marvelously descriptive of the strange,

chimera-like bodies that inevitably

emerge. Eternally playful and exploratory,

the Surrealists engaged in many variations

on the game; there are even exquisite

corpse landscapes.

In conjunction with SURREALISM &

WAR, Aaron Hughes and I asked artists to

participate in a variation of the exquisite

corpse game that is suggested by both

the exhibitions themes and the name of

the game itself. Specifically, we asked t he

artist who initiated each corpse to begin

by choosing a veteran whose corpse the

drawing would represent. We told the art-

ists that their corpse could be the corpse

of anyone who served in t he military,

whether they served in a war or not,

whether they are alive or dead, whether

the artist knows them or not. It could be

the corpse of someone who died or was

injured, someone who the artist is grateful

did not die or get injured, someone the

artist is close to or a historical figure or

someone famous, someone who served

in the U.S. military or in the military of

any other country. We hope that asking

people to make their corpse the corpse of a

specific veteran draws attention to the fear

we have for the life of every veteran that

is implicit in their service. If someone we

know, someone we care about, is serving

in the military, we inevitably imagine that

they could die, and we dread the thing we

have imagined.

Yellow ribbons, military recruiting

advertisements, combat-themed video

games and movies, and controversies

about the role of the military and whether

we should be engaged in certain wars at all

have become an ever-present background

to our daily lives. Yet it is strange how

many Americans have no contact at all

with those who serve. The military may be

in our minds but too often the individuals

who serve are not. For far too many people,

veteranswhat they have gone through,

what challenges they face now, even

simply who they aretruly are unknown.

These corpses, and the varied past and

present veterans represented in them, are

an acknowledgement of the way those who

have served have touched our lives.

#21

The Exquisite Corpse of Major Nidal Malik Hasan

Drawn by Mary Patten, Elise Gardella, and Julia Shirar

Mary Patten wrote Nidal Hasan killed 13 people and wounded many others in Fort

Hood, Texas in November, 2009. All but one of those killed were fellow s oldiers. Born in

the U.S. of Palestinian parents, Hasan joined the army in 1995 and was commissioned

two years later. Under the auspices of the army, he went to medical school where he

specialized in preventive and disaster p sychiatry. He is now awaiting execution in Fort

Leavenworth, Kansas. The terrible paradoxes that riddle this story parallel the bigger

schizo-narrative of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

#28

The Exquisite Corpse of an Unidentified Soldier Volunteer

Drawn by Craig Yu, Selina Trepp, and Andreas Fischer

Craig Yu wrote The image I chose to reference is of a soldier volunteer having a neu-

rological test performed on him in a United States army chemical weapons test program

that ran from 1955 to 1972. I chose him because of the soldiers anonymity and because it

raises questions about personal and institutional control.

#29

The Exquisite Corpse of the Unknown Child of Kosovo

Drawn by Giuseppe Pellicano, Brian Mathew, and Ryan Walsh

Giuseppe Pellicano wrote Born in conflict, instilled with its hatred, this child of war

unwillingly lived as a combatant and dies as a veteran.

#30

The Exquisite Corpse of Victor F. Nettles

Drawn by Bea Nettles, Steve Kostell, and Megan Diddie

Bea Nettles wrote I chose my father Victor F. Nettles. He never talked about his mili-

tary service but even as a child I could see that he was proud to be in uniform. He left for

active duty early in 1941 and served as a major during the battle of Angaur, where he was

awarded a Bronze Star. The description of these days in his memoirs is harrowing, with a

huge contrast between days of bombardment and live shelling and the act of looking for

beach shells during quiet breaks.

surrealism and war gallery guide

Documents