Review:
Surrealism and the Occult
by Nadia Choucha
140 pages with photos, £8.99
available from Mandrake
PO Box 250,
Oxford OX1 1AP
Such a book could not appear in France. The relation between art
and theoccult is something that has been long recognised in French
culture. Itis the prudery of the British cultural establishment
which makes Surrealismand the Occult stand out.
The book's value lies in the fact that it collates information
about theoverlap between Art and occultism from Symbolism to
Surrealism. Many linkshave been dug out through looking at primary
sources. But the book doesnot go further than this.
Those familiar with the work of Francis Yates will be familiar with
neo-platonism,which lies at the root of much western occultism.
This was a prime factorin renaissance Art and science. This occult
shadow has never been far awayfrom Western Art - we would argue
that this has been a structural necessity.Surrealism and the Occult
provides useful evidence in support of this, evenif Nadia Choucha
prefers to maintain universal essentialism at a theoreticallevel.
Choucha does not question 'Art' as a social construct of
capitalistsociety, nor the social basis of the occult 'revival' of
the nineteenthcentury. She loses sight of the fact that surrealism
attempted to overthowexisting social conditions:
"The cause of the ideological failure of surrealism
wasits belief that the unconscious was the finally discovered
ultimate forceof life. (...) We now know that the unconscious
imagination is poor, thatautomatic writing is monotonous, and that
the whole genre of ostentatioussurrealist 'weirdness' has ceased to
be very surprising. The formal fidelityto this style of imagination
ultimately leads back to the antipodes of themodern conditions of
imagination: back to traditional occultism."
(Report on the Construction of Situations . . . Guy Debord
June 1957
­p; this was a text for the founding conference of the
SituationistInternational).
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