Revision of the Surrealist Movement in the 1940s and 1950s - The Artist Kay Sage (1898-1963) and the "American Dream"
Final Report Abstract
On the outset of the project stood the conviction that the art history of Surrealism requires a revision that is both gender-sensitive and network-oriented. This appears to be the only way to do justice to the wealth of actors, their origins and scope for action and to the complexity of artistic phenomena in a time characterized by war, flight and exile in order to understand the visual arts in the 1940s/50s as "entangled history" and "Nachkriegsgefüge" (Lange 2023). As an art movement, social group and framework for action, Surrealism had an important mediating function both within Europe and, above all, in the transatlantic region. The project therefore focused on the American surrealist Kay Sage, who also felt at home in Europe. Her extensive, medially diverse oeuvre has received too little attention to date as an important contribution to Surrealism, significantly expanding and semantically enriching its repertoire of motifs and aesthetics. This applies in particular to Sage's artistic depiction of spatiality, of veiling and unveiling, visibility and concealment. She thus addresses key themes of Surrealism (the unconscious, the matter of dream) and expands them also to include genuinely American or indigenous aspects that show her work and her person as interculturally interwoven and reflecting precisely that. In the course of the project, the monograph "Kay Sage (1898-1963): Surrealist Spaces and Networks" was produced. The subtitle not only refers to the artistic work, but also alludes to Sage's role as a mediator in the surrealist structure and between the continents. Sage supported the exile of artists from fascist Europe, acted as an art collector and agent and thus also contributed to the spread of Surrealist ideas and methods in the USA in practical terms and through personal contacts. The young generation of 'Abstract Expressionists', who, as Robert Motherwell emphasized, should actually be called ‘Abstract Surrealists’, were particularly inspired by this. The examination of the artist, of her work and activities not only illuminates a female position of Surrealism, but also makes Surrealism tangible as a multi-layered structure. Methodological impulses arise both for gender-sensitive network research and for the significance of the biographical in art historiography. This also applies to an initially subordinate topic of the project, the research on Hein Heckroth (1901-70), the German painter, stage designer and film designer who spent the 1930s/40s in exile (France, England, Australia). For him, surrealism was a medium of connection, homing and processing. The study of Heckroth's life and work opens up further fields of research to be explored in the future ('Surrealism in Germany', 'Surrealism and Exile').
Publications
-
"Outside While Inside: Images of Dreams and Dreaming in Early Modern Visual Arts", in: Bernard Dieterle, Manfred Engel (Hg.): Mediating the Dream / Les genres et médias du rêve. Würzburg (Königshausen & Neumann 2020) (= Cultural Dream Studies 4), S. 471- 487
Ruby, Sigrid
-
[Vortrag] Jennifer Jäger: "A Bird in the Room. Dystopian Dreamscapes in the Work of Kay Sage", Konferenz "ISSS Surrealisms 2021. Nuits blanches: Noches en Blanco: Around the Clock", International Society for the Study of Surrealism, 11.-14.11.2021 [online]
Jennifer Jäger
-
[Vortrag] Sigrid Ruby: „Hein Heckroth – Surrealismus und Exil“ anlässlich der Verleihung des Hein-Heckroth-Bühnenbildpreises durch die Hein-Heckroth-Gesellschaft Gießen e. V., Stadttheater Gießen, 19.09.2021
Sigrid Ruby
-
„Pendeln zwischen den Welten. Surrealistische Netzwerke und traumhafte Landschaften: DFG-Projekt erforscht den transatlantischen Surrealismus der 1940er- und 1950er-Jahre“, uniforum 5 (2021), S. 7
Jäger, Jennifer
-
[Vortrag] Sigrid Ruby: "Deep Time and Modern History: Charles Willson Peale's 'Excavation of the American Mastodon'", Konferenz "New Worlds, Old Worlds, Lost Worlds: Picturing Prehistory in American Art and Visual Culture", INHA – Institut national d'histoire de l'art, Paris, 07.- 08.04.2022
Sigrid Ruby
-
[Vortrag] Sigrid Ruby: „Der Surrealist Hein Heckroth im Exil“, Workshop „Hein Heckroth (1901- 1970): Bühnenbildner, Filmdesigner, Maler. Bausteine einer Werkbiografie“, Institut für Kunstgeschichte / Hein-Heckroth-Gesellschaft Gießen e.V. Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen / Oberhessisches Museum, 23.-24.06.2022
Sigrid Ruby
-
[Vortrag] Sigrid Ruby: „Traumbilder als Metabilder – Fallstudien zur Kunst des Surrealismus“, Ringvorlesung „Radical Dreaming. Visionen, Imaginationen, Abgründe“, Zentrum für Kulturproduktion, Zeppelin Universität Friedrichshafen, 29.03.2022
Sigrid Ruby
-
„Hein Heckroth – Surrealismus und Exil“. In: Hein-Heckroth-Gesellschaft e.V. (Hg.): Hein-Heckroth-Bühnenbildpreis 2021. Gießen 2022, S. 21-35
Ruby, Sigrid
-
„Painting is dead – long live painting! Dalís homerische Apotheose“. In: Katrin Dolle u. Semjon A. Dreiling (Hg.): Space Oddities: Die homerische Irrfahrt in Bildkünsten und Populärkultur 1800–2021 (Europa–USA–Südamerika). Heidelberg (arthistoricum) 2022, S. 445-460
Jäger, Jennifer
-
[Vortrag] Jennifer Jäger: "Peggy Guggenheim and Kay Sage", Workshop "Peggy Guggenheim in London", Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venedig, 26.06.2023 [online]
Jennifer Jäger
-
[Vortrag] Jennifer Jäger: „Kay Sage (1898-1963): Surrealistische Räume und Netzwerke“, Workshop „Forschungsfeld Surrealismus“, Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte Paris / Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, DFK Paris 28.-29.09.2023
Jennifer Jäger
-
[Vortrag] Sigrid Ruby: "Hein Heckroth (1901-1970) – An Artist of Surrealism", Symposium "Legacies of the Dunera: Internment, Art and International Heritage", Centre for Public History, Heritage and Memory, Nottingham Trent University, UK / Monash University, Australia. National Justice Museum, Nottingham, 02.-03.03.2023
Sigrid Ruby
-
[Vortrag] Sigrid Ruby: „Surrealismus und Exil. Zum Beispiel Hein Heckroth (1901-1970)“, Workshop „Forschungsfeld Surrealismus“, Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte Paris / Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, DFK Paris, 28.-29.09.2023
Sigrid Ruby
