West
Coast Surrealists
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A
CHRONOLOGY
OF WEST COAST SURREALISM 1965-2018
Introduction
The west
coast, where there is a natural surreality in the landscape, has long
been
the home of many artists whose work draws from metaphysical and
surrealistic
sources.
Some have worked together in various combinations and
eventually
made connections with the Paris-based groups who continued after the
death
of André Breton in 1966.
One of the principle writers
to
concentrate on the work of Canadian surrealists was the late
José
Pierre, who wrote L'Univers Surrealiste (editions Somogy, 1983) and a
research
paper, Surrealism
in
Canada (University Rabelais de Tours) which included
members
of the west coast group. Pierre worked with André Breton and
co-organized
exhibitions with him.
Another renowned Parisian historian of Surrealist art and collaborator
with André Breton is Sarane Alexandrian who, with his
numerous works on Surrealism
and
artists
such as Victor
Brauner,
Max Ernst, Hans Bellmer and Jacques Hérold, has
helped
to keep the movement alive. He published the work
of Gregg Simpson in the fall
issue
of Superiore Inconnu,
a periodical which he
began with André
Breton in 1947.
The PHASES Movement, created
in 1945 by poet and artist, Edouard Jaguer during the Second World War
to try and keep the surrealist spirit alive has exhibited and published
the work of many Vancouver artists in the 1980's and 1990's.
.
Recognition in Canada began
with
the University of British Columbia in the 1973 exhibition,
Canadian
West Coast Hermetics and in the 1971 Vancouver School
of
Collage
exhibition at UBC. The year
1978
saw members of the
West Coast
Surrealist
Group invited to exhibit in Surrealism Unlimited, organized by Conroy Maddox at London's
Camden Art
Centre.
In 1979 Natalie Luckyj of Queens University organized a
touring
exhibition entitled Other Realities: The Legacy of Surrealism in
Canadian
Art which
toured to the Canadian Cultural Centres in Paris
and
London. In the 1980's the movement was acknowledged by Dr. David Burnett
in his comprehensive book, Contemporary
Canadian Painting.
In 1997, Professor Yves M.
Larocque
received a doctorate from the Sorbonne for his thesis, the Idea
of Surrealism in English Canada, which featured many references
to the
various west coast groups during over three decades.
Adjudicating
the thesis were some of the leading scholars of 20th century art in
Europe.
They included: Josée Vovelle,
of the Sorbonne, whose other
specialities include Dutch and
Swedish
Surrealism. The second adjudicator from the Sorbonne was Gerard
Monnier, a proponent of diffusionist
theory, Michel Remy, an expert on
Surrealism in the U.K. A Canadian scholar, the author a book on
French Canadian automaticism, Patrick Imbert, was also present
from the
University of Ottawa.
Other artists, many of them
working
in the area of mystical or metaphysical art, continued working outside
the formal west coast groups, but their natural
inclination
to the magical,
the spiritual and the surreal, leads them into
the
orbit of this chronology.
1965-70
Experiments in collage begin
with Gary Lee Nova, Al Neil, Gregg Simpson and bill bissett. They also
collaborated in experimental multi-media work together at the
Sound
Gallery
Motion Studios, Intermedia and exhibited collages and
paintings
at The Mandan
Ghetto
Gallery.
.
Gary Lee Nova, Immense
Stone at Baalbec, collage, 1967
-Jack Wise exhibited mandala paintings at the New Design Gallery,
Vancouver.
- Lawren Harris, of the Group of Seven, completed a group of mystical
abstract
paintings before
his death. Although not a surrealist, Harris' interest in the
metaphysical,
puts him into the realm
of the Surrealist's Second Manifesto.
-Gary Lee Nova exhibition of hexagon paintings at the UBC Fine Arts
Gallery,
works which
presage the post-Pop, neo-surrealist style of the 1970s.
-Claude Breeze's Lovers in a Landscape, shown at New Design
Gallery,
Vancouver
bill bissett published collages and drawings, often of a surreal
nature,
in blewointment press
magazine.
1967-69
Classic period of collage in
Vancouver: Lee Nova and Simpson made collages from etchings, influenced
by Max Ernst and also made dada/pop style photomontages; Al Neil
made
complex, totemic, junk assemblages
which evoked Kurt Schwitters; bill bissett continued doing a
combination
of the mystical and satiric in his photomontages and mixed
media
work.-
-Jack Wise exhibitions of
mystical
paintings at the Bau-xi Gallery, Vancouver
-Dave Mayrs exhibition
raided
by police vice squad at the Douglas Gallery Vancouver. Several
paintings
are seized.
Film makers at this time in
Vancouver
used techniques like juxtaposition and quick cut editing to achieve a
dissociation of the senses. Poets david uu and Gerry Gilbert and
artist/musician
Gregg Simpson all made dada-inspired home movies in 8mm while
fiImmakers
Al Razutis, Dave Rimmer, Al Sens, Gary Lee Nova and others made
more elaborate statements combining abstraction with cosmic imagery.
Continue
the Chronology: 1970
Last Updated: Oct. 29, 2018
