the paradox of style

The funny thing is, surrealism is treated like it is a mere "decorative" tradition, at least in the sense that the smug modernist position of the northern europeans and the gringos like to dabble a bit in the thought, but basically only remember it for its drooping clocks, a razor across an eyeball, a fur tea-cup, as if it was a "style." Of course, in places like here (Mexico), places that weren't interupted quite so heartily by the full blown post-linguistic explosion of Surrealism, that is, abstract expresionism and just plain old ruinous (and really post-linguistic) "abstractionism," - well in places like this, Surrealism is of course, much more a continuation of 19th century realism and symbolism, propped up decoratively, by lots of Nouveau and Deco. That is to say, it is not so much one in a series of little understood movements. Rather, it is the visible continuation of a still not quite over history.

But I want you to keep an eye out, in what you are looking at these days, and tell me that a lot of it doesn't look suspiciously surreal. If i am feeling ballsy I think I might post another post with about 7 million examples of surrealism in contemporary art, and then talk about why we all find it so, ummm, mid-century (?)


By the way, that's the old Cine Opera, in San Rafael, Mexico City, fantastic and empty, cool cave air blows out the front of it and onto the sidewalk.