Dissident Designs and Ethnographic Surrealisms

Too frequently Surrealism is referred to in the singular when over three decades of sustained intensive activity has worked to bring to light the multiple, often contradictory, nature of the groups who went by this name, temporarily coming together in the mid-1920s and then splitting into various warring factions as the decade unfolded. As a consequence of these narrow definitions, it has become all too easy to not only reduce Surrealism down to one reading - and so limit its scope of operation and impact - but also to interpret it as a style. This in turn has led to what can most accurately be termed Surrealist styling, followed by an ongoing process of the restyling of what was only styling to begin with.