OFFICIAL BULLETIN OF THE
INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OF
RECORDIST INVESTIGATION
ISSUE NO.2 ISSN 1481-9147
APRIL 20, 1999
Welcome to the second issue of The G. Grosz Garden Nitrate (a.k.a. I.B.R.I. Bulletin)!
There's little question that there is (and has been over the past 30 years or so) something of a conspiracy on the part of various academic types to keep Surrealism safely tucked away in the history books where it poses no threat. And they seem to be doing quite a good job of it! We at the Bureau can certainly attest to that. In fact, without going into too much history, 14 years ago when Recordism was in its formative stages, we may have simply chosen to call ourselves Surrealists had we not been convinced that Surrealism as a movement ceased to exist sometime in the 40's or 50's! It's only been in the last few years, after gaining access to the internet, that we have discovered the existence of a current International Surrealist Network. Recordism, having developed for so long under the influence of historical Surrealism (if I may use such an unpleasant term) without any contact or knowledge of modern Surrealism, may be a somewhat different beast. But, whatever differences may exist between the Recordists and the current Surrealist movement, you can well imagine that we're quite thrilled to find (as we suspected all along) that we are not alone in our task!
Still, we feel that the predominant belief (as a result of a variety of factors) is that Surrealism as a movement is a thing of the past. We are interested in combatting this idea and, as it is one of the main goals of the Bureau to increase awareness of current Surrealist, Recordist, and related activities, we thought we'd start off this issue with a quote from Penelope Rosemont, taken from her recent book Surrealist Women (a wonderful and very comprehensive anthology of the writings of women Surrealists from the 1920's to the present). The quote is taken from Rosemont's introductory essay for the final section of the book which deals with Surrealist activities through the 80's and 90's.
"Since 1980 surrealist groups have been active in Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Prague, Brno, Paris, Madrid, Stockholm, Leeds, Chicago, and Australia. Some were formed in Breton's lifetime, others are of more recent origin (surrealists have always despised genealogy, in any case). Besides these groups, smaller nuclei have agitated for surrealism -with demonstrations, publications, exhibits- in many other places, including Puerto Rico, Montreal, London, Berlin, Reykjavik, Medellin, and San Francisco, and isolated individuals have advocated the surrealist viewpoint in Angola, Belgium, Japan, Holland, Portugal, Denmark, Poland, Romania, Ireland, and Trinidad. There are also other groups which, for various reasons, no longer call themselves surrealist, but which openly derive their inspiration from surrealism and indeed think of themselves as its direct continuators."
There you have it. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
