Surrealism and Animation

Abigail Susik is Associate Professor of Art History at Willamette University, USA, and joint editor of the Transnational Surrealism series. She has published several books on surrealism, including Surrealist Sabotage and The War on Work (2021).

For the 100th anniversary of surrealism, Susik has assembled an extraordinary collection that reinforces the cross-cultural longevity of the movement. Ranging across film studies and the plastic arts, it gathers fresh insights into canonical figures while bringing a range of exciting new voices into the conversation. This is solid historical scholarship that greatly expands on contemporary theoretical debates around the nature and uses of animation writ large.

• List of IllustrationsIntroduction: Beyond Disorientation’: Surrealism, Animation, and the Hidden World, Abigail Susik (Willamette University, USA)Part One: Activating Still Life and Materializing Dreams: Surrealism and Animation from the 1920s to MidcenturyIntroduction to Part One, Abigail Susik1. It’s a Bird: Animation, Objective Humour, and the Heart of the Black Star, Krzysztof Fijalkowski (Norwich University of the Arts, UK)2. Len Lye: Animation, Automatism, and Surrealism, Raymond Spiteri, (Te Herenga Waka - Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand)3. Boop-Oop-a-Doop: Betty Boop’s Adventures in Surrealism, Michael Richardson (Goldsmiths, University of London, UK)4. Animation and Animacy in Salvador Dalí’s 1930s Multimedia Projects, Alex Zivkovic (Columbia University, USA) 5. Max Ernst’s Cartoon Modernism: Brentano, Disney and Dream and Revolution, David Hopkins (University of Glasgow, UK)6. Woe to the sperm whale that fought against a louse! On the Surrealist Reception of Tex Avery in the 1950s, Gavin Parkinson (The Courtauld Institute of Art, UK)Part Two: Animacy Transforming the World: Postwar Transnational Surrealism and AnimationIntroduction to Part Two, Abigail Susik7. Parker Tyler’s ‘Film as the problem of space control’, Ann Reynolds (University of Texas, USA)8. Harry Smith and Lawrence Jordan in San Francisco, 1946–64, Jorgelina Orfila and Francisco Ortega (Texas Tech University, USA)9. Magical Dreams: The Surrealist Animations of Dušan Tomáš Marek in Czechoslovakia and Australia, Cheri Donaldson (University of South Australia, Australia)10. Animating Death and Deadening Life in 1964: Angels’ Games by Walerian Borowczyk and Les Temps morts by René Laloux and Roland Topor, Abigail Susik (Willamette University, USA)11. Everyday Dreamlife: Surrealism and Animation in Japan, Catherine Hansen (The University of Tokyo, Japan) 12. The Secret Life of the World: Jan Švankmajer’s Documentary Animation, Kristoffer Noheden (Stockholm University, Sweden)Part Three: A Living Art for Critical Re-enchantment: Contemporary Surrealism and AnimationIntroduction to Part Three, Abigail Susik 13. Animating the surreal side of structural film in the 1970s, Ken Eisenstein (Bucknell University, USA) 14. Ubu Animated: Jan Lenica, Geoff Dunbar, and William Kentridge, Ian Walker (Independent Scholar, UK)15. Surrealism, Animation, and Ecological Consciousness in Cecilia Vicuña’s Paracas (1983), Paulina Caro Troncoso (Independent Scholar, Chile and Italy) 16. A Feminist–Surrealist Metamorphosis: The Charged Objects of Kim L. Pace, Catriona McAra (University of Aberdeen, UK)17. Sweet Horror Claymation: Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg’s Neo-neo-surrealism, Marie Arleth Skov (Independent scholar, Germany) Interviews18. ‘We Are All Surrealists’: Abigail Susik and Jacolby Satterwhite in conversation, Jacolby Satterwhite (New York-based artist, USA)19. An Exorcism and Liberation: Penny Slinger and Judith Noble in conversation, Judith Noble (Plymouth College of Art, UK), Penny Slinger (Los Angeles-based artist, USA)Notes Index