Mark Polizzotti

Oct 15, 2024 | apollo-magazine.com | Mark Polizzotti

From the March 2024 issue of Apollo. Preview and subscribe here. Pierre Roy caused barely a ripple in the Surrealist movement. He was nominally a member of the group from 1925 to 1928, participated in some of its early art exhibitions and frequented its cafe klatches.

Sep 26, 2024 | bookshop.org | Mark Polizzotti

Description A sharp and playful critique of colonialism from the leading voice of French-Rwandan literature, animated by memories, archival specters, and powerful women "In sentences of great beauty and restraint, Mukasonga rescues a million souls from the collective noun 'genocide, ' returning them to us as individual human beings." -- Zadie Smith In a 4-part narrative brimming with historical asides, alluring anecdotes, and murky questions left in the margins of colonial records, Sister...

Jul 1, 2024 | literaryreview.co.uk | Mark Polizzotti

‘Surreal’ is a promiscuous word. It is used to describe the occurrence of things which are unusual or apparently impossible, it identifies that which is fantastic and seemingly irrational, it points to the uncanny or otherwise strange or dreamlike, and it is domesticated in off-the-wall fashion and furniture. Salvador Dalí’s moustache and René Magritte’s pipe (which is not one) are held up as embodiments of surrealism.

May 29, 2024 | lrb.co.uk | Mark Polizzotti |Hal Foster

Although​ André Breton wasn’t the first to use the term ‘surrealism’, he made it his own with his first Manifesto in 1924. There he defined the fledgling movement as a ‘quest’ to discover ‘the marvellous’ in the mundane and to work towards the ‘future resolution’ of dreaming and waking. While this lofty goal was new enough, the means applied to it, such as playful operations of chance and sudden collisions of disparate words or images, were prepared by Dada.

Jan 9, 2024 | lithub.com | Mark Polizzotti |Yale Press

Does Surrealism still matter? Has it ever mattered? The question is hardly new, and has been debated practically since the movement was launched.