Saturday, September 23, 2023, 6.30pm BST (Please check your own time zone).

Please join us on Saturday, September 23 for a discussion of Pierre Taminiaux’s new book, Politics of Contradiction from Hermann Press.

Register through Eventbrite here.

What can artists and poets do against autocratic, totalitarian, dangerous, or simply alienating political practices? Is art a credible countering power to fight against social and economic excesses? This book tries to answer these questions by showing that since at least the early 20th century, the arts have made it possible to break with a reductionist vision of reality.

The avant-gardes of the last century play an essential role here, particularly Dada, in its original expression of the chaos of the modern world, as well as Surrealism and its heirs. They revealed the creative power of madness and alternative psychic states. These avant-gardes also stubbornly explored experimental forms and practices of poetic writing to better thwart the pitfalls of classical linear expression. In this sense, they invented a radical policy of language, grasped both in its lyrical intensity and in its ludic power.

At a time of globalization and the primarily virtual and spectacular representation of life, revisiting their approach makes it possible to invent a new philosophy of the gaze, which takes into account both its critical and speculative dimensions.

Pierre Taminiaux is a Professor of 20th and 21st Century French and Francophone Literatures at Georgetown University. He has also taught at the University of Strasbourg and at the University of Paris I-Panthéon-Sorbonne. His research focuses on the relationship between literature and the visual arts in the 20th century avant-garde, with an emphasis on Surrealism.

He is the author of numerous books, in particular The Paradox of Photography (Rodopi, 2009), Littératures modernistes et arts d’avant-garde (Honoré Champion, 2013), Du surréalisme à la photographie contemporaine : au croisement des arts et de la littérature (Honoré Champion, 2016) Révolte et Transcendance : Surréalisme, situationnisme et arts contemporains (L’Harmattan, 2018) and Esthétiques radicales : actualité des avant-gardes (Hermann, 2021).

They include critical essays on artists such as Man Ray, Duchamp, Magritte, Arp, Léger and Broodthaers, as well as on writers and poets such as Tzara, Breton, Nougé, Paz, Michaux, Vaneigem and Dotremont. They also include some of his own photographs.

He is also a poet who has published five poetry volumes, among which Les Mots de l’art (L’Arbre à paroles, 2012), inspired by the art of Arp and Juan Gris, and Miroirs du Jeu (L’Harmattan, 2023), inspired by both Dada and Surrealist poetry. Finally, he is a founding member of the ISSS, of which he has been the first Vice-President between 2016 and 2020 and a board member for the past seven years.