How women raised on surrealism fought the legacy of fascism

One hundred years after the publication in 1924 of André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism, the greatest museums are shining their spotlight on this movement. The Tate Modern in London and the Metropolitan Museum in New York took part in the exhibition “Surrealism beyond borders” (Surrealism Beyond Borders | Tate ModernExternal link)as well as the Center Pompidou in Paris, which is offering a retrospective until mid-January (Surrealism – Center PompidouExternal link).

In Leeds, in the north of England, the Henry Moore Institute revisits surrealism boldly and in a new light (The Traumatic Surreal | The Henry Moore InstituteExternal link).

Abandoning the predominant and all-male incarnations of Max Ernst, Salvador Dali or René Magritte, the curators of this exhibition, Clare O’Dowd and Patricia Allmer, only offer works by women artists created in the Germanic context of the 1960s. until today. These artists seized on this trend to evoke the legacy left by fascism and the Holocaust, broadening the spectrum of surrealism.

As André Breton defined it, surrealism is “based on the belief in a superior reality” which combines associations of ideas and dreams. Which thus lowers the rational, Cartesian and logical barriers, the mantra of the bourgeois ideology of the time.

The fact that this movement rejected traditional structures and hierarchies, in particular values ​​such as marriage, children and family, coupled with the desire to reinvent society, are all elements that attracted these women.

Artwork by Ursula (Schultze-Bluhm) entitled “The Big Pandora Box”, 1966

© Rheinisches Bildarchiv Cologne

Overcoming trauma

Titled «The Traumatic Surreal»this exhibition offers, in addition to discovering works little shown until now, a convincing expertise of this period, drawing inspiration from the work that Patricia Allmer wrote on the subject and bearing the same title.

Centered on the Freudian concept of traumathis seeks to understand the way in which these artists were able to interpret the mark left by Nazism as well as the impact that this era had on young women over several generations. Who grew up under the following triptych and straightjacket: “children, kitchen and church”. For Patricia Allmer, the latter opposed the normative forms of femininity of the time. And this is why they embody pioneers of “anti-fascist feminist protest”.

“Carmen – enfant terrible” (2001)” by Renate Bertlmann. The lace edges of a chiffon ball gown lined with rows of triangular, pointy teeth, all fanned out beneath a red dildo.

Belvedere Vienna, photo: Johannes Stoll

«Traumatic Surreal» encompasses the works of three generations of women. Starting with that of the Swiss artist Meret Oppenheim, born in 1913. She is the only one here to have worked closely, at the time, with the original group of Max Ernst and André Breton.

Better known as Ursula, the German artist Ursula Schultze-Bluhm, born in 1921, was very prolific after the Second World War. The same goes for the Swiss artist Eva Wipf, born in Brazil in 1929. The next generation is represented by the Austrians Renate Bertlmann and Birgit Jürgenssen, born in Vienna in 1942 and 1943.

The 3rd generation is embodied by multimedia artists like the Luxembourger Bady Minck and the Swiss Pipilotti Rist. Still active, both were born in 1962.

Two interrelated themes underlie much of their work. The trouble that persists between animals and humans through the massive use of fur. And the phenomenon of confinement illustrated in this case by cages and barbed wire.

Eva Wipf (re)discovered

Little celebrated during her life as an artist, the Swiss Eva Wipf is one of the great discoveries of this exhibition in Leeds. His creations range from panel painting to avant-garde assemblage of objects.

“There are so many fantastic women artists who were unable to make a name for themselves in the past. And Eva Wipf is definitely one of them,” confirms the curator of this exhibition, Clare O’Dowd. The works of the latter had in any case never before been exhibited in Great Britain.

“Shrine III (Madonna of Laghet)” by Eva Wipf (1964-68). Work made of wooden cabinets, soap dishes, a disembodied clock base and a worn kitchen grill transformed into a barred window and cage, overlooking a medieval angel.

© Museum Eva Wipf

Made from various objects found at flea markets and industrial waste recovered from discard, the assemblages of this missionary daughter are often in line with religious iconography. This while we were struggling in the years after the war and the Holocaust over knowledge and beliefs. The oldest work presented at the entrance to the exhibition is precisely by Eva Wipf and is entitled «Shrine III».

Granting an almost divine aura to domestic utensils, she enclosed them so that they became iconoclastic sanctuaries leading to a vision that was both ambivalent and imbued with hope. The works exhibited here are the result of a balance between belief, miracle and dystopian scenes against a backdrop of protest.

From Meret to Eva

Single and living alone for a large part of her life, Eva Wipf kept a diary testifying to her strong artistic ambition and a pervasive insecurity. In her last notes of July 1978, she quotes the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu. “He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened,” he said.

“Eva Wipf was under the direct influence of surrealism, in particular Meret Oppenheim. The two even corresponded occasionally. We wanted to show the influence that several generations of women have had,” explains Clare O’Dowd.

Two works by Meret Oppenheim are visible in Leeds: “Squirrel” (1969) et «Word Wrapped in Poisonous Letters (Becomes Transparent)» (1970). Both were made when the artist was living in Switzerland after an 18-year parenthesis (“crisis”).

Patricia Allmer notes that her late works focus on the Holocaust and the artist’s Jewish identity after his flight from Germany to Switzerland with his family.

«Word Wrapped in Poisonous Letters (Becomes Transparent)», de Meret Oppenheim (1970).

© DACS 2024 Courtesy LEVY Galerie, Berlin/Hamburg

«Word Wrapped» is a minimalist construction made from pieces of iron. It shows the ends of a swastika folded into an empty box. Three-dimensional work and sketch of an aestheticized nothingness, but in a strict form. The shadow of the threads is drawn on a white surface, making the print appear unstable and haunted.

>> To find out more about Meret Oppenheim, browse the swissinfo.ch article on the artist’s latest retrospective, with archive images from Swiss Television dating from the 1950s and 60s:

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Torch bearer

The exhibition finally projects us into 2017 with the work «Open My Glade (Flatten)» (2000-2017) by Pipilotti Rist, which consists of nine short one-minute films made from a camera placed outside a window of a high-rise dwelling. The latter films the artist pressing his face against the window.

The effect is grotesque, sensual and surreal. Her lipstick becomes an amorphous splatter, her grass-like hair is trapped between her body and the window. Through this performance and staring into the camera, the artist critiques the way in which cinema often distorts, traps and fetishizes the mirage of femininity.

Video extract from “Open My Glade (Flatten)”, installation by Pipilotti Rist (2000).

© Pipilotti Cross

Although surrealism itself often boxed women into an absolute vision of sensuality and the irrational, a form of tradition is re-appropriated here in a playful and self-reflexive way, proving the movement’s potential for dissent.

As women’s rights are once again threatened around the world and in the face of the rise of the far-right in Europe and beyond, the exhibition pertinently shows how everyday trash can become objects of resistance.

Text reread and verified by Reto Gysi von Wartburg and Eduardo Simantob, translated from English by Alain Meyer/sj