From November 5 through the 17th of 2019, the Bay Area celebrates the 100th anniversary of Surrealism.
City Lights presents a 20-day festival celebrating the root sources of the birth of Surrealism while simultaneously exploring unique expressions of the Surrealist current since its inception.
Although André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto signaled the official arrival of Surrealism in 1924, it was 1919 when he and Philippe Soupault collaborated on The Magnetic Fields, which he considered “indisputably the first surrealist (and in no sense Dada) work . . . the first systematic use of automatic writing.” From automatic writing and an interest in psychoanalysis to spontaneous methods of artistic creation, a rich expression of aesthetic and political concerns emerged that differentiated Surrealism from its Dada past. Fresh from the battlefields of the First World War, the artists, writers, and instigators of the movement aimed to move beyond nihilism to explore the depths of human experience. Labeled a movement, Surrealism is better described as a way of life.

To learn more visit: www.insidethemagneticfields.net