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Podcast: New Books in Art
Episode: Abigail Susik, "Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work" (Manchester UP, 2021)
Description: According to the definition offered by Tate on the occasion of the exhibition Surrealism Without Borders, Surrealism âaims to revolutionise human experience. It balances a rational vision of life with one that asserts the power of the unconscious and dreams.â Surrealism, therefore, produces images and artefacts that are rooted outside the real and that evade rational description.For many artists, however, the practice of Surrealist art took on an explicitly political and therefore practical dimensions. In Surrealist Sabotage and the War on Work (Manchester UP, 2021), art historian Abigail Susik argues that many Surrealists tried to transform the work of...