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Excitement in the art of surrealism and art nouveau
Introduction: When Art Makes a Bet
Surrealism and modernism (in the broad sense of modernism) met in the territory of risk and play. For the former, the case promised to open the "lock of the mind" and release the unconscious; for the second, the risk was form engineering - a way to get out of the academy and invent a new language. The excitement here is not a casino with chips, but a mode of operation: to put on the unpredictable and accept the consequences at the level of meaning, form and ethics.
1) Theories of chance: from "objective case" to "controlled uncertainty"
Andre Breton called hasard objectif (objective case) "a meeting of the inner and the outer": as if the world plays along with the unconscious, if you remove the censorship of the rational.
Jean (Hans) Arp threw cut pieces of paper on the floor and fixed them where they lay down: the artist is not an author in the classical sense, but a witness and co-author of chance.
Laszlo Mohoy-Nagy and Man Ray in photograms allowed light to "play" with paper: optics and chemistry decide where the form will be.
Modernism in the version of the Bauhaus and the "new thing" formulates a controlled risk: a strictly defined system (grid, material) + the tolerance of a random result (texture, fingerprint, light rejection).
2) Surrealist gaming practices
Exquisite corpse
Collective drawing/text, where each participant continues the invisible part of the previous one. The rules are simple, but the result is unpredictable: the line collides with the line, the meaning with nonsense. Excitement - waiting for the denouement when the sheet is unfolded.
Automatic writing and drawing
The hand moves faster than thought, the tongue "stumbles" and produces an unexpected image. Here the bet is that the truth of desire will emerge in the stream, bypassing censorship.
Playing tarot in a surreal way
In 1941, the group created "Jeu de Marseille" - its own deck of "tarot" with poets and rebels instead of kings. This is irony over fortune-telling and the ritual of myth: chance becomes a plot tool.
3) Duchamp: from roulette to chess - economics and logic of the game
"Monte Carlo Bond" (1924) - fictitious bonds of the "company" Prose Sélavy, promising a win on roulette. The artist turns gambling into a financial performance: invest in my system - does it exist?
"Three standard stops" (1913-14) - three threads drop from a height of a meter, fixing unpredictable curves; the case becomes a measure ironic to the metric system.
Chess (magna) is a game without chance: Duchamp's excitement is shifted from roulette risk to the strategy of pure reason. The modern paradox: to surrender to the occasion - to more accurately see where it is not needed.
4) Ernst's tactile risk and Miro's visual pitfalls
Max Ernst invented frottage and grottage: paper on a rough surface, graphite friction; then - scraping the paint layer. The texture "decides" for the artist, and the artist recognizes birds, forests, monsters in spots.
Joan Miró obeyed the self-formed "alphabets" of spots and lines. The appearance of a figure is an event, not a plan. The excitement is to bring the case to form without strangling it.
5) Bauhaus and Modern: Laboratory for Controlled Randomness
Mohoy-Nagy sets up experiments with light: photograms, "light-spatial modulators." The result is a performance of physics, where the author is a condition engineer.
Paul Klee "leads the line for a walk": gives her dynamics, but leaves room for surprise; Klee's diaries are a manifesto of articulated chance.
Peter Behrens, Mondrian and the rationalists produce the opposite effect: a minimum of risk on the surface, a maximum in betting on reduction, a willingness to suffer "silence" for the sake of a new order.
6) Abstract expressionism and "manageable case"
Jackson Pollock: "dripping" - gesture, gravity, viscosity, pause. There is no roulette, but there is irreversibility: every thread of paint is an event that cannot be canceled.
Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis - paint spills are controlled by the slope of the canvas: body, matter and chance become co-authors.
7) Ethics and politics of the game: from empathy to irony
Surrealists considered the case emancipatory: a way out of the bourgeois "mind." But the game is fraught with the temptation to aestheticize everything. Modern meets discipline: the case is possible if its limits are visible (frame, rule, protocol).
A couple of questions that 20th century art asks the viewer:- Who pays by chance - author, material, viewer?
- Where is the end game: in the discovery of meaning or in the pleasure of the trick?
8) Visual grammar of excitement: what to look for in works
Trail of the procedure: drops, prints, folds, lines of fall - "evidence" of how the work was done.
Point of irreversibility: where the moment is visible, after which the gesture cannot be canceled.
Ritual and failure: is there a rule (grid, seriality) and where the artist breaks it meaningfully.
The presence of "another agent": gravity, light, chemistry, collective - who else "played" here?
Echo image: what pops up in random form - bird, face, map, sign? This is the viewer's gain.
9) Mini kaysbook (6 examples in the palm of your hand)
1. Arp, "Collage according to the laws of chance" (1916-17) - gravity as co-author; the tranquility of composition is a paradox of random order.
2. Duchamp, "Three standard stops" - a metric produced by a "mistake": science meets the game.
3. Ernst, "Gradopolis" - a forest of random textures; mythology is born out of tactile experiment.
4. Man Ray, "Rayographs" - photograms where the light throws dice instead of the artist.
5. Mohoy-Nagy, "Photograms" - technology as a roulette of light; invention of an image without a lens.
6. Pollock, "Number 1A" - a manifesto of "controlled randomness": the rhythm of a gesture and the impossibility of repetition.
10) Curatorial scheme of the exhibition "Excitement as a method"
1. Manifestos of chance: Breton, Arp, early Dada.
2. Tactile procedures: Ernst, Miro, Klee.
3. Light game: Man Ray, Mohoy-Nagy, experimental photography.
4. Economics and irony: Duchamp (bonds, stops), sur-tarot.
5. Managed case: Pollock, Frankenthaler, Louis.
6. Echo today: algorithmic generative series, performances with random.
Each block - with a "demo station": a tray with cutouts for a "collage of chance," a mini-photolab with a photogram, a "thread metric" for its own "stops."
11) How to watch (and not "buy" the trick)
Ask a question about the protocol: what rules were in effect when created?
Separate myth from mechanics: where is the "unconscious," and where is the material and physics.
Look for a price: what did the artist risk - reputation, control, result?
Listen to the silence of the gesture: strong works leave room for a long look after the "wow effect."
12) Conclusion: Art as fair play
Surrealism and Art Nouveau proved that chance is not the enemy of form, but its catalyst. Excitement - not about "lucky/unlucky," but about the willingness to accept the unknown as part of creativity. The best works in this territory are held on two supports:1. A ritual/frame in which the occasion may manifest itself;
2. The author's responsibility for the consequences is aesthetic and semantic.
When this converges, art does not win the jackpot, but what is worth risking at all: a new appearance of the world and a new language of conversation with oneself.