Surréalisme en 1947 – occultism and the post-war marginalisation of Surrealism
Surréalisme en 1947 – occultism and the post-war marginalisation of Surrealism

Summary/Abstract: The exhibition Surréalisme en 1947, organised in Paris (Galerie Maeght) by André Breton and Marcel Duchamp was an attempt to consolidate and reorient the Surrealist move-ment in the post-war reality. According to the trend set by Breton in his Rupture inaugurale, Surrealism was going to become tied with occultism more strongly than ever before. The exhibition, whose main topic was “a new myth", was arranged in the form of an initiation path, consisting of the Hall of Superstitions, the Labyrinth of Initiation, etc. One reason for the critical panning of the exhibition was the fact that in that period all forms of esoteric trends were associated with Fascism, and myth was more and more frequently acknowledged as an obstacle in building new, rationally organised society. The aim of this paper is to present how the strategy of Breton, who proclaimed the need for establishing “a new myth" and connecting Surrealism with occultism against the Paris intellectual milieu, contributed to the marginalisation of the Surrealist movement.

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