Surrealism and Australia: Towards a World History of Surrealism

Abstract

In this paper, the authors write a brief history of Surrealism in relation to Australia. However, as against the usual national histories of Australian art, in which Surrealism is understood as arriving late to the country, or the later post-colonial revisions of this history, in which Surrealism is understood as undergoing certain transformations upon entering the country, what is emphasised here is the way that Australia is simply part of a world history of Surrealism. There are two wider consequences of this. The first is that Surrealism, as against its common readings, was a global art movement. The second is that we might see the connection between Australia and Surrealism as an example of a new world art history to be written in the twenty-first century, which would be not a simple universalism but something always written from a particular place.

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