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Modernisms 1900-1980
Course: Modernisms 1900-1980 > Unit 5
Lesson 2: Surrealism- Surrealism, an introduction
- The Case for Surrealism
- Surrealism: Origins and Precursors
- Surrealism and Psychoanalysis
- Surrealist Techniques: Automatism
- Surrealist Techniques: Subversive Realism
- Surrealist Techniques: Collage
- Surrealist Photography
- Surrealist Exhibitions
- Surrealism and Women
- Man Ray, The Gift
- Magritte, The Treachery of Images (Ceci n’est pas une pipe)
- Conservation | René Magritte, "The Portrait," 1935
- Dali, The Persistence of Memory
- Dali, Metamorphosis of Narcissus
- Giacometti, The Palace at 4am
- Meret Oppenheim, Object (Fur-covered cup, saucer, and spoon)
- Meret Oppenheim, Object (Fur-covered cup, saucer, and spoon)
- André Masson, Battle of Fishes
- Oppenheim, Object
- Giorgio de Chirico, "The Anxious Journey"
- Room: 1930s
- Surrealism
- Room: 1940s
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Giacometti, The Palace at 4am
Alberto Giacometti, Palace at 4am, wood, glass, wire and string, 1932 (MoMA). Created by Beth Harris and Steven Zucker.
Want to join the conversation?
- Giacometti once suggested that the little figure, the "chess piece" as the speakers describe it, referred to his mother. He also said that the piece in general is connected to a complicated but enthralling love affair. How important do you think it is to know what the artist him or herself intended in the way of symbolism and expression?(6 votes)
- I suppose that's a matter of personal preference. Personally, I always want to know the artist's intent. I think this is especially true of art I don't immediately "get." Without details about the context in which it was made or the artist's intent, I'm not likely to pay it much attention. Giacometti's "The Palace at 4am" is a good example of this. Without this video and these comments to give me a contextual understanding of the piece, I wouldn't find it very interesting.(1 vote)
- whats the song called at the end of the video?(7 votes)
- Has anyone got a Black Hole Badge?(3 votes)
- One black hole badge you can get is Tesla, which means that you have 10,000,000 energy points(6 votes)
- Is this a "sculpture"...what is this called? It's interesting to see a "sculptural artwork" in different lighting scenarios. In the video when the piece is shown in a more harsh lighting I definitely feel a much stronger surreal effect going on- I wonder if artists care about how pieces like this are presented/lighting? I also get a very female vibe (warmth in the color of wood) from all items except the flying dinosaur and wonder if he is "male" and representing the true nature of men.(2 votes)
- I wonder what it takes to make this video(1 vote)
- Ideas, talent, equipment, imagination and a certain amount of money are needed to make this and all of the other videos in the course.(1 vote)
Video transcript
(classical music) - [Steven] We're in the
Museum of Modern Art looking at an early Giacometti. Giacometti is known best for his tall, thin, bronze sculptures or his erasure drawings most of which were made
after the second World War. But before that, he was
involved with surrealism. - [Beth] And we know that the surrealists are interested in the unconscious. I feel like I'm looking at a dream scape. This is a house but it's not a house. We have forms that seem to defy gravity. I'm looking at that form in the center where a ball seem suspended
on this sled-like shape. It just reminds me of the
irrationality of dreams. - [Steven] This is called
The Place at 4 a.m. and so this is that
interior space of the dream that's made into a stage
set and it's so frail. It seems as if the architecture
could be made and unmade, reconstructed at a moment's notice the way that space is so easy
to reconstruct in a dream. - [Beth] Or the way that you
might construct something with child's toys and then take
them apart and rebuild them. - [Steven] Well, this is a game. The woman that seems like
such a maternal figure on the lower level is as if she
is the queen in a chess set. - [Beth] But what makes
her look so maternal, the way that she seems
very upright, very erect, almost like a super ego looking
over The Palace at 4 a.m. - [Steven] And although
she has a cinched waist, she's really been desexualized in that her skirt goes
all the way to the floor. There is a sense of the matron. And so immediately, my instinct is to read this
through a Freudian lens because these are the ideas that the surrealists were
are so involved with, the idea of the unconscious, the idea of releasing the dangerous but creative qualities that
we repress during the day, during our waking state. - [Beth] We've interpreted
that female figure as someone instructing you
about what should be done, that voice of your unconscious. But we have other forms here too. We have a vulture-like creature
who flies above the house. - [Steven] Almost pterodactyl-like, some sort of primordial creature. And similarly, with the
vertebrae or the tailbones that we see in the box to the right. But the thing that I have
always been most fascinated by in this sculpture is the
suspended plane of glass. It creates a drawn plane in this space. So if this were not on a high pedestal, we would be able to look
down through that glass and the space below would
be revealed through it. - [Beth] Something that
you weren't allowed to see or wouldn't normally expect to see. You would have more of a
feeling of being a voyeur. - [Steven] Voyeurism makes sense to me because there's also a sexual aspect here. You mentioned that ball in the center which is framed against a flat board, but there's also this very
sensuous hollowed form and that ball that could
move easily up and down it. - [Beth] But we also have
a sense of rigid geometry that that form breaks. - [Steven] These are matchsticks. This is handmade. This is all frail. It's all fragile. It could all be disassembled
or it could break so easily. And in that sense, I think
it's a beautiful echo of the fragility of the interior self. - [Beth] And the
ephemerality of our dreams and the inability to come to
terms with our unconscious to really grasp it and understand it. (classical music)