The neo-surrealism manifesto co-written by Sergeï Poljinsky, painter, and Jean-Marc Chipot, gallery owner, has just been given to Didier Vordy, mayor of Minerve, and Jean Arcas and Corinne Roger of Pays Haut-Languedoc and vineyards.
Published 100 years after that of André Breton, the objective of the new manifesto is to take up the torch of surrealism to bring it up to date and rediscover, in art, the link between the brain, the eye and the hand as opposed to conceptual art which has occupied the art scene for half a century. “This movement currently being established aims to bring together artists who recognize themselves in its proposal and with the ambition of creating the necessary conditions for the emergence of a new artistic avant-garde after half a century of conceptualist-pop conformism”notes the gallery owner, while explaining the career of the painter who was a student of Dali.
The artist, of Russian origin, is a descendant of Old Believers, a traditional branch of Russian Orthodox Christianity having suffered numerous persecutions over the centuries. He was particularly marked by a visit he made to Minerve in the early 1990s. There he felt the strong presence of the Cathars immolated after the siege of 1210 and felt a great closeness with his own origins.
The gallery owner concludes: “So, did Minerva become Sergeï Poljinsky’s Perpignan station, that is to say the center of the neo-surrealist universe?”.
Midi Libre correspondent: 06 74 38 47 53.
