The PhotoSC Surrealism Triennial

BACKGROUND

Surrealism was born in an inter-war moment of uncertainty where so much of what the world took for granted was turned upside-down and there was a sense of collective trauma and confusion.  A hundred years later, the global pandemic past us, senseless wars are raging in Europe and the Middle East, political agitation is dividing many countries and the climate crisis looms. 

The philosophy of the surrealist believed that art that could reach beyond the rational, liberate humanity and transform life. Seeing in a different way, breaking boundaries, finding a different focus became the modus operandi of Surrealist artists and photographers Man Ray, Lee Miller, Claude Cahun, Dora Maar, Maurice Tabard, Hans Bellmer and others.  

These photographers used such procedures as double exposure, combination printing, montage, and solarization to dramatically evoke the union of dream and reality. Other techniques such as rotation or distortion were used to render their images unusual. The work of Claude Cahun, of assuming other identities, finds resonance today in the work of Cindy Sherman and Gillian Wearing.

PhotoSC’s 2021 exhibition “Surrealism: The Unusual and the Subversive” was held three years ago during the height of the pandemic. Today, the unusual persists and photography offers a unique tool in creating images that not only represent the world in actuality, but to also re-present such in strange, abstract and revolutionary ways – images that challenge, blur or undo the boundaries how the world is understood and perceived; images that collapse any distinction between what is and what is not; and images that add the hallmarks of the element of surprise; unexpected juxtaposition; a distortion of reality; a dream-like subject matter; interest in subconscious and the magical, metaphorical and instinctive. 

This call welcomes images where meaning is constructed thru the camera, thru the treatment of the print, or the use of photo collage. Photography, from any stylistic approach - be it documentary, conceptual, fine art, abstract, etc. - is an immensely powerful storytelling tool, one that reaches beyond the rational, and changes understanding. Tell us about the unusual, the irrational or the events that critique ideology.  Better yet, Show us.