WEBVTT - Part One: The Surrealists Were Even Cooler Than You Thought 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:05.120 Hello, and welcome to Cool People Did Cool Stuff. You 0:00:05.240 --> 0:00:08.080 thought I forgot how to introduce my podcast. I would 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:12.240 never forget how to introduce my podcast, because I'm Margaret Kiljoy, 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:14.600 the host of Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, And 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:16.920 this is what I do for a living, and I'm 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:20.720 good at my job. But with me today is my guest, 0:00:21.239 --> 0:00:22.000 Caitlyn Dante. 0:00:22.440 --> 0:00:25.360 Hi, Caitlin, Oh, Hi, thanks for having me. 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:30.800 Yeah. People, if they're keeping track, you were on when 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:34.240 we talked about Oh God, was anti fascism in film? 0:00:34.320 --> 0:00:34.720 Was that you? 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:39.920 Yes? And it was specifically oh because we talked about 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:42.280 someone named Shrek Max Streck. 0:00:42.360 --> 0:00:42.960 Yeah. 0:00:43.440 --> 0:00:50.400 Yeah. And then there was another episode on the printing people. 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:55.000 Who were the printers? Yes, yeah, all right, Well I 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:58.080 have you on for good ones and that's cool because 0:00:58.120 --> 0:00:59.000 today is a good one. 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:00.520 Can't wait. 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:03.400 The other person who's on for the good ones. There's 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:06.880 only good ones is Sophie our producer. Hi, Sophie. 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:08.480 Hi, Caitlyn Fear. 0:01:12.080 --> 0:01:15.720 Beforehand, I asked Caitlin what they could do if I 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:17.880 had completely forgotten my script, what they would do an 0:01:17.880 --> 0:01:19.759 episode on And we're not doing that. That's not what's 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:21.360 happening today. I have a script in front of me. 0:01:22.480 --> 0:01:27.440 But Caitlin said Paddington Bear. Yeah, Kaitlyn, who's Paddington Bear 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:32.000 for the listeners. He's a cool bear who did cool 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:36.560 stuff and he's just a little sweetie pie. He loves marmalade. 0:01:37.400 --> 0:01:39.960 He is Sally. 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:42.160 He wears a Duffel coat. 0:01:42.400 --> 0:01:43.000 Oh that's it. 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:46.440 I've definitely been with Caitlin where they were doing a 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:51.120 show and then fans gave Caitlin orange marmalade. Mm hmm, 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:52.000 yeah that's happened. 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:57.240 Yeah, people give me all kinds of Paddington paraphernalia. And yeah, 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:00.240 he based I mean Paddington. He kind of dismantled the 0:02:00.280 --> 0:02:02.720 prison industrial complex in Paddington two. 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:03.960 Okay, okay. 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:11.400 He also fought back against racism and xenophobia and like 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:16.840 anti immigration sentiments in Paddington I, and who knows what 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:18.400 will happen in Paddington three. 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:20.639 So it sounds like he has a lot in common 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.040 with people we're gonna talk about today. Ooh, it's some 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:29.280 Paddington's cooler in some ways. Our audio engineers Ian Everyone's 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:33.960 to say hi in Hi ian y. Our music The 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:36.520 music was done forced by unwoman who has a new 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:39.000 album out that you should check out on band camp 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.800 or wherever you. I don't know enough about how music 0:02:42.880 --> 0:02:46.840 is distributed. It's probably on Spotify two, I don't know. 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:54.760 But today we're gonna do an art history day. Oh 0:02:54.800 --> 0:03:01.000 but don't worry, there's still going to be revolvers. Oh good, Yeah, 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:03.919 because did you ever take art history? 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:09.519 I did not. I know so little about art history. 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:10.239 I did. 0:03:10.280 --> 0:03:15.000 It is the boringest class I've ever taken in my life. 0:03:15.240 --> 0:03:16.600 So vay do you concur is it? 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:17.080 Yeah? 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:18.600 I get. 0:03:18.680 --> 0:03:21.799 I took ap RT history in high school with a teacher, 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:26.840 with a teacher who took it more seriously than a 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.119 heart surgeon takes heart surgery. 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:31.160 WHOA. 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:35.600 I took art history when I briefly went to art school, 0:03:35.680 --> 0:03:37.720 and it's the only class I've ever failed in my 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:42.400 life because it had no connection to anything that interested 0:03:42.520 --> 0:03:47.960 me at the time. Because my hypothesis, art history is 0:03:48.000 --> 0:03:50.680 taught as if it's boring, as if it's only about 0:03:50.720 --> 0:03:53.600 the ways that people like represented objects through time being 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.880 like and now they represented them with more color and 0:03:57.000 --> 0:04:00.920 less color and shit like that. Right today, we're going 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:02.160 to talk about the Surrealists. 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:04.280 That's awesome. 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:09.600 Yeah, I'm excited to talk about the Surrealists, because what 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.040 I learned about them was just like, oh, they chose 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:14.600 to paint things and they had melting clocks or whatever. 0:04:15.200 --> 0:04:17.279 To be fair, I also just said that I failed 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:19.000 art history, so maybe they taught me more and I 0:04:19.080 --> 0:04:23.520 was asleep. But what the pieces like meant was stressed, 0:04:23.600 --> 0:04:25.640 but in this abstract way, as if art was its 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.599 own realm. Kind of like how philosophy is boring as 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:32.240 shit unless it's connected to daily life. That's my hypothesis. 0:04:32.720 --> 0:04:33.000 Mh. 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:36.080 The Surrealists. What do you know about the Surrealists? What 0:04:36.160 --> 0:04:37.719 have you heard about these folks? 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:42.680 I don't know the difference between Like if you were like, oh, 0:04:42.760 --> 0:04:51.039 you know, like Cubism and Surrealists and the other styles, Yeah, 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:54.240 I wouldn't be able to identify who did what what 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:57.680 eras they were popular, and I don't I have I 0:04:57.720 --> 0:05:00.800 have no information. This is a huge gap knowledge. 0:05:01.040 --> 0:05:03.599 Okay, I think I'm going to be able to present 0:05:03.640 --> 0:05:06.120 it where it's actually going to be exciting. I don't 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.080 know whether will make you care about the Surrealist art itself. 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:11.240 Although I actually really like some of the Surrealist art. 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.440 The Surrealists were all about daily life. They actually didn't 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.240 set out to be an art movement. They set out 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:21.320 to be a revolutionary organization of artists aiming to overthrow 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:25.039 the world order, and not just like philosophically, but like 0:05:25.080 --> 0:05:29.520 with guns and shit as necessary. Oh hell yeah, that said, 0:05:30.120 --> 0:05:32.240 probably most of them would have preferred to let other 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:35.159 people handle the guns. Well, they did the painting, let's 0:05:35.200 --> 0:05:37.839 be real, And they did all of this as part 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:41.719 of the larger leftist project, starting off communist, moving ever 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:46.600 more towards friend of the Pod anarchism, though obviously they 0:05:46.640 --> 0:05:49.320 all as individuals took different routes to different destinations. But 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:56.280 that is the selfclaimed surrealist group's movement. Okay, we are 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:59.799 going to structure this episode differently, a bit less linearly. 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:04.719 Partly I'm going to pretend like it's because the Surrealists 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:06.240 would have liked it that way. 0:06:07.960 --> 0:06:09.800 They would, I. 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:13.440 Actually think they would have. Yeah, there's this word that's 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.200 used by the descendant of the Surrealists, the Situationists, who 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:20.480 are really involved in like late sixties France, lefty revolution 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:24.599 of everyday life type stuff. And they had this concept 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:29.320 called the derieve, which is this kind of pretentious but 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:33.360 also really cool idea of taking wandering around the city 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:36.159 to be an art form, right, and so like the 0:06:36.200 --> 0:06:38.760 derive is just literally like you like walk out your 0:06:38.760 --> 0:06:41.600 house and you go different places than you would have 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:43.800 and you just let the and you move from like 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:46.880 one situation in context to another rapidly. And it's a 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:49.680 very urban thing for that, right, is a thing that 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:53.279 works because it is urban. I really like the derieve 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:57.960 and you can recontextualize the city at random and you'll 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:00.440 learn different things. So we're going to take a reeve 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:04.359 through surrealist history and we'll start off with some of 0:07:04.360 --> 0:07:06.719 the things they did, not some of the things they thought, 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:08.440 or some of the things that they painted or wrote. 0:07:09.200 --> 0:07:11.160 We're gonna start with a story about World War two, 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:16.240 because apparently everything is about goddamn World War two, and 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:19.480 also on this podcast, everything is about a goddamn lesbian 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:23.120 and or non binary surrealist couple who found themselves on 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:28.560 death rope during the Nazi occupation. Who these two folks, 0:07:29.440 --> 0:07:34.880 Claude Kaa and Marcel Moore, And they were both probably 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:38.320 would have called themselves women. They both took men's names. 0:07:38.760 --> 0:07:41.600 Claude isn't could be either name, but Marcel is a 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:45.920 man's name, and Claude at the very least espoused a 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:50.120 non binary identity. I'm not gonna I'm just gonna use 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:52.840 she because I'm not gonna like retroactively be like you are, 0:07:52.880 --> 0:07:55.400 the following kind of thing that we currently talk about, right, 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:57.000 I don't know sure. I don't think she would have 0:07:57.040 --> 0:07:59.600 given a shit no matter what pronounce someone used for them. 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:02.000 And I'm only going to use one name for each one, 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:04.320 not because they were like terrified of anyone speaking their 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:06.760 dead name. That concept wasn't around, and they called each 0:08:06.800 --> 0:08:09.119 other often. They called each other by their birth names. 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:13.080 But I'm doing it because I can't keep track of 0:08:13.120 --> 0:08:17.040 more than one name for a person there, which really 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:21.160 helps me in the modern like queer trans world. But 0:08:22.040 --> 0:08:24.000 I'm just gonna call them Claude and Marcel. 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:25.640 Yeah. 0:08:26.000 --> 0:08:29.000 Claude ca A was born with a woman's name in 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:32.440 not A city in western France in eighteen ninety four, 0:08:33.160 --> 0:08:36.239 and she was born into a prominent family of Jewish intellectuals. 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:39.079 Her father ran a newspaper, her uncle was one of 0:08:39.120 --> 0:08:41.559 the great symbolist poets. I could not tell you what 0:08:41.600 --> 0:08:44.680 that means because I have a similar level of understanding 0:08:44.760 --> 0:08:48.160 of some of these things. If I haven't if they 0:08:48.160 --> 0:08:51.360 didn't fight Nazis. I don't really know anything about them yet, 0:08:51.559 --> 0:08:54.560 you know, sure I will. I kind of know what 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:59.000 the romantics. They would have thrown explosives at Nazis had 0:08:59.040 --> 0:09:02.600 there been Nazis to throw them at. Anyway, Claude grew 0:09:02.640 --> 0:09:05.840 up bilingual. She grew up speaking French and English, and 0:09:05.880 --> 0:09:08.640 she went to school in England and France both And 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:11.439 when she went to school in England, like boarding school, 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:14.160 when she was like a teenager preteen, I think maybe 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:17.000 she met anti Semitic abuse at the hands of her classmates. 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:24.600 Because everything is awful, and she fell in love young, 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:26.840 and she stayed that way for the rest of her 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:30.400 life with the one person. And this is like one 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:32.440 of my favorite romances in history. This might be my 0:09:32.440 --> 0:09:34.280 favorite romance I've ever recovered on this show. 0:09:34.800 --> 0:09:36.040 Ooh. 0:09:36.120 --> 0:09:42.200 Although it started off when she was fifteen, her dad 0:09:42.240 --> 0:09:45.680 married a Jewish woman with a seventeen year old daughter, Marcel, 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.400 and they fell madly in love. The two stepsisters. Later 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:54.480 Marcel took There's two versions of the story. Either Marcel 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:57.320 took the boy's name first and then Claude took one later, 0:09:57.520 --> 0:09:59.199 or they both took it at the same time while 0:09:59.200 --> 0:10:01.640 they were living in Paris, US. I like the version 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:04.560 where they took it at the same time for no 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.720 good reason, and I have no It's my favorite thing 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.480 about trying to tell a single linear narrative out of 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:15.280 history when there's perfectly good arguments that completely contradict each 0:10:15.280 --> 0:10:17.480 other about minor things, and then you get obsessive about it, 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:19.440 and then you cross reference everything and you don't get 0:10:19.480 --> 0:10:22.160 an answer. I don't know if you've had this, and. 0:10:22.080 --> 0:10:24.360 Then it's twenty hours later and you're like, oh, no, 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:25.800 I still have so much to do. 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:32.440 Yeah. I don't always sleep Wednesday nights. We record on Thursdays, 0:10:33.280 --> 0:10:35.640 just so everyone listening now knows what day I record. 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:37.240 Gasp. 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:40.640 Yeah, I don't know what they'll do with it, but 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:44.520 I still don't trust people. Do not Okay, anyway, I've 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:45.200 decided to trust. 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:47.360 You still like to know when you know, they like 0:10:47.400 --> 0:10:50.439 to have that insider information. Yeah, they like it when 0:10:50.440 --> 0:10:55.120 the curtain is pulled back and yeah, really kind of 0:10:55.200 --> 0:10:57.360 mundane details are revealed. 0:10:58.160 --> 0:10:59.839 You see me with my hair unbrushed. 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:03.120 Yeah. 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:07.319 So they moved to Paris. They were living together, and 0:11:06.920 --> 0:11:09.199 they were rich kids. They are living off of their 0:11:09.200 --> 0:11:13.520 family money, which is good work if you can get it. 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:15.200 Right. 0:11:16.000 --> 0:11:18.480 They often called each other by their birth names and 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:21.600 then use the boys' names, as they're like pen names, 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:25.079 but other times they totally used these other names. I 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:28.880 think they were pretty fluid about it. It's also so 0:11:28.880 --> 0:11:31.040 they joined the Surrealist movement. We'll get to that, but 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:34.800 this is their lesbianism, alongside of a lot of Surrealist 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:40.080 men's open or closeted homosexuality earned the surrealis the epithet, 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:43.360 which is now a compliment of being a homosexual organization 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.360 has always been fairly welcoming to the case. Obviously, there's 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.560 homophobia everywhere. It's like, we're talking about nineteen twenties and thirties. Nothing, 0:11:50.559 --> 0:11:54.520 it's perfect. Yeah, but yeah, a lot of them are game, 0:11:54.880 --> 0:12:00.559 including Claude and Marcel most to the rest of the 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.720 Surrealists and most of the Western left. Claude. We have 0:12:03.760 --> 0:12:07.360 more written about Claude. She's like more famous, right. She 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:09.920 spent the early nineteen twenties and nineteen thirties involved in 0:12:09.960 --> 0:12:13.840 communism and the Communist Party, joining a group called the 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:18.160 Association of Revolutionary Writers, and this was buds with the 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:20.880 Surrealists because the Surrealists at this time were also really 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:24.440 into the Communist Party. This didn't last their interest in 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:28.920 the Communist Party, which was controlled by Russia. Right, So 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:32.400 in nineteen thirty two, she's like, Oh, the surrealism thing, 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:36.920 we're all organizing together. It seems cool. Sign me up. 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:40.120 She starts showing work at all the surrealist exhibitions and 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:42.240 all that shit. I do not understand the art world. 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:44.320 Like I have an understanding of like how it works, 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:50.120 but I don't get it or like care shit. Sure, 0:12:50.320 --> 0:12:52.240 someone who's listening who cares, is like, why is this 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.240 bitch to surrealists? I care about other shit. They did 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:57.480 a lot, and I love the art they made. I 0:12:57.600 --> 0:13:01.239 just don't give a shit about the world of exhibitions 0:13:01.280 --> 0:13:02.120 and stuff. 0:13:02.640 --> 0:13:06.000 Right, Yeah, I guess I've never even thought about it. 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.160 I don't know how I feel about it because I've 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:13.400 I don't know, I've done no thinking about it. 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:17.280 There's no reason too. And the only reason I have 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:19.440 like a weird anger about it is because I like 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:23.000 all the anti art movements that like, actually, the surrealists 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:26.680 claim to be against the bourgeois art world and anyway whatever. 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:30.080 By the late nineteen thirties, the Surrealists were sick of 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:34.800 Stalin and they were getting really into Trotsky, which is like, hey, 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:38.079 state communism still seems okay, but like Stalin is a 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:42.440 motherfucker and authoritarianism is bad, right, So she joins the 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:46.240 International Federation for an Independent Revolutionary Art because nothing can 0:13:46.280 --> 0:13:48.480 have a fucking nice, normal name. Everything has to be 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:50.160 the blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:51.840 Blah, so many syllables. 0:13:51.920 --> 0:13:55.200 Yeah, yeah, that's all. I'm French too, I'm still sticking 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:59.920 to the English translations of these. And she's making art, right, 0:14:00.080 --> 0:14:02.600 that's like her main thing. She's first and foremost remembered 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:07.520 as a photographer. She's called a self portraiture artist. This 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:11.760 is lesbian erasure because her partner took all the pictures. 0:14:12.920 --> 0:14:16.000 Oh I see, okay, it's like she set them up. 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:20.239 There were collaborations, and we don't really know the details 0:14:20.280 --> 0:14:21.600 of a lot of it, I don't think, but like 0:14:22.120 --> 0:14:24.280 it was only like way later that people were like, oh, 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:29.600 Marcel was like actually taking all these pictures. It's fine, 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:33.360 It's like anyway, whatever, Wait, would. 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:36.080 They have been considered surrealist photographs? 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:36.800 Yeah? 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:37.640 So surrealism? 0:14:37.680 --> 0:14:39.600 Does that even work? 0:14:39.960 --> 0:14:41.600 Okay, so we're gonna talk about this more like next 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:43.800 week when we get really in the surrealism who they are. 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:46.120 But the basics of it is that surrealism is not 0:14:46.240 --> 0:14:49.680 about like painting melting clocks or certain color palettes or 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:54.640 things like that. Surrealism is about reconfiguring the objects of 0:14:54.680 --> 0:15:01.240 everyday life in a way that break out of make us, 0:15:01.280 --> 0:15:04.200 break out of our assumptions about like what things are 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:07.000 and what things can be. Surrealism is basically like, we 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:10.160 want to pain dreams, like we want to destroy the 0:15:10.200 --> 0:15:13.840 barrier between like the dream world and the waking world. 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:16.480 And so this is like part of their revolutionary stuff, right, 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.920 is that they're like, well, we want to we want 0:15:19.920 --> 0:15:21.960 to live the way that we want to live. We 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:24.160 want to see our dreams come into reality, and we 0:15:24.200 --> 0:15:28.680 want to get rid of this like stagnant, boring world 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:30.400 that we've been forced into. It's kind of a rich 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:31.800 kid problem for a lot of them. Some of them 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.320 are working class. We'll talk about some of those, sure, 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:37.040 but yeah, no, And actually men Ray is the most 0:15:37.040 --> 0:15:40.880 famous surrealist photographer, although one of the techniques that he 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:43.720 supposedly developed was developed by a surrealist woman who he 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:45.760 was fucking who was completely ignored for a very long time. 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:47.600 We're gonna talk more about her. She's a very important 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:51.120 war correspondent. But surrealist photography is absolutely a thing. 0:15:52.200 --> 0:15:55.200 I'm a Google image searching it right now. 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:57.840 Okay, I don't know what's gonna come up. Is there 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:00.800 gonna be a picture of like someone cutting someone's eyeball? 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:05.040 That's so whatever movie that's it? Because there's also like 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:11.000 surrealist film movement maybe or maybe I'm thinking of German Expressionism. 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:13.080 I don't they both come out of World War One. 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.240 But yeah, okay, so I that was the first thing 0:16:16.280 --> 0:16:18.760 I thought of of like a surrealist photo. I was like, oh, 0:16:18.760 --> 0:16:21.160 I wonder if it's like like that image of someone, 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:25.080 which is I don't want to think about it? 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:26.520 Well to me because we don't have to because that 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:28.000 was by Deli, and Deli was kicked out of the 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:29.800 Surrealist but for being a fascist. But we'll get to 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:34.560 that the no go ahead. Sorry what you say. 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:36.680 Though, Oh no, just that it's I mean, I guess 0:16:36.720 --> 0:16:41.520 it's what you'd expect. It's like photography but surreal. 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:44.400 Yeah, it's like I don't know you you all can 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:47.720 google it at home. Objects that are not where you 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:51.160 necessarily expect objects to be, like in different contexts and stuff. 0:16:52.280 --> 0:16:55.600 It's not abstract. It's like still representational art. You know 0:16:55.640 --> 0:17:00.200 you can see, right, it's hard to describe. Yeah, but 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:02.600 like yeah, yeah, that's the beauty of it. 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:03.160 Perhaps. 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:07.439 Yeah, I think the like most common one that like 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.160 I think of is the guy with the apple covering 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:15.959 his face. That's like the most that the one that 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:18.919 I that when I'm like, oh this is what this is, 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:19.760 that's what I think of. 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:25.480 Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I had a photograph of 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:27.520 a painting. I can't even see the apple in the face. 0:17:27.680 --> 0:17:32.919 I think that's the painting. Yes, it is apple in 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:33.800 front of face art. 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:34.320 Yeah. 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:36.760 Yeah, so there's a whole subgenre. 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.160 But you can do the same thing with a photo, right, 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:44.480 there's both. Oh okay, oh yeah, all right, Sophie paid 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.439 more attention art history than I did. There we go. 0:17:47.640 --> 0:17:49.080 I passed my AP test, thank you. 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:50.040 Okay. 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:55.040 I was really scared of that teacher, like I, yeah, 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.399 I talk too much in class and guess where I 0:17:57.400 --> 0:17:58.120 am now. 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.480 Yeah that's right. I have this theory about how I 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:06.159 got listening. I'm scared of him. Still, it's been a 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:08.080 long time, and I still have fear. 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:10.680 Sorry for your biggest fan. 0:18:11.800 --> 0:18:14.719 That would be really cool, but don't tell me. 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:15.560 I don't need to know. 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:25.560 Yeah, you're just like that would be really creepy. Yeah, well, okay, 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:30.240 so back to the surrealist by first, Oh, do you 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:32.840 know what else? Is a juxtaposition of things that don't 0:18:32.880 --> 0:18:36.240 belong together to create a strange hole and trying to 0:18:36.280 --> 0:18:38.000 make it in the art world while at the same 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:43.920 time holding revolutionary values. It's the fact that we have advertising. Yep, 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:53.359 here's the Mads and we're back, and we are talking 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:58.560 about cloud cause art that she made with with Marcel, 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:02.359 and like, we have this assumption that women are supposed 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:03.920 to be obsessed with ourselves, so it's all seeing a 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:06.800 self portraiture is kind of my read on how this 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:08.800 is read, right, And you also have like all of 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:11.879 these like other famous women who did self portraiture and 0:19:11.880 --> 0:19:14.960 stuff like that. But it was artistic collaboration with Marcel, 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.000 and we're gonna talk later about all the porn that 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:21.360 they took of each other and shit nice and she's 0:19:21.359 --> 0:19:25.320 more reice only more recently getting any credit. So Claude 0:19:25.320 --> 0:19:28.719 became sort of well known for the Paris photographs, although 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:31.800 really honestly really only got famous in the eighties, like 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:35.640 years and decades after she died or whatever. In classic 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:43.199 under misunderstood artist form, the two these photos that she 0:19:43.280 --> 0:19:46.600 takes are really into fucking with gender and costume and 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:49.680 they're really fucking cool. And there's like photos of herself 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:52.400 talking to herself, and there's like like photos of her 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.720 like meeting her and like all of these like gender things, 0:19:55.720 --> 0:19:57.400 and she has a shaved head and most of them 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.560 she's very androgynous looking. And at one point she wrote 0:20:02.560 --> 0:20:06.159 masculine feminine it depends on the situation. Neuter is the 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:10.400 only gender that always suits me. I see you trying 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:11.879 to google it and her name is spelled like it 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:12.600 would be Kahun. 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:20.479 I got there, Okay, yes, and now I'm looking at 0:20:20.520 --> 0:20:23.119 these images. Very cool. 0:20:23.359 --> 0:20:27.840 Yeah, I really like her work. Like she's more famous 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:29.600 to me for some of her later work during the 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:31.040 Nazi occupation. 0:20:31.640 --> 0:20:31.800 But. 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.920 She worked in every medium. She wrote and then Marcel 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:39.960 did the illustration. Like overall, it's like they both did photos, 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:43.119 but she was more the writer and Marcel was more 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:46.040 the illustrator. She did collages, which is a really big 0:20:46.080 --> 0:20:49.760 important part of surrealist work. She sculpted, she did performance art, 0:20:49.920 --> 0:20:53.600 they did propaganda, She wrote theory. She especially wrote about 0:20:53.640 --> 0:20:57.800 the idea of perpetual insurrection. They also did some street fighting, 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:01.800 which is my favorite form of art. What they they, 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:03.760 I don't know they called it art or not. They've 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:06.960 they formed a group called Contra Attack, which I think 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:11.240 means counterattack, which they referred to as the quote Combat 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:15.680 Union of Revolutionary Intellectuals, and they joined that. They did 0:21:15.680 --> 0:21:19.720 this alongside some other surrealists like Andre Bertrand Breton and 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:25.359 George Batai, and as far as I can tell, this 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:27.639 was like a magazine and they're talking about all this 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:30.080 like need for revolutionary stuff. It also seems like they're 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:32.520 throwing down in the streets because this is nineteen thirties 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:35.639 in Europe and there's fascists and they need to be 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:39.960 stopped right and at this point they're all moving further left. 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.600 They've already left Stalinism, now they're leaving Trotzkyism, and they're 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:46.159 making their way into anarchism. And they don't do it 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:48.960 as by necessarily being like, this is the ideology that 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:51.960 I want to check off, and instead they're like, actually 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:54.479 we like freedom and all of these Like we're going 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:56.600 to talk about this more in the longer piece, but 0:21:56.680 --> 0:21:59.360