Surrealism is not, has
never been, and will never be a literary or artistic school but is a
movement of the human spirit in revolt and an eminently subversive
attempt to re-enchant the world: an attempt to reestablish the
“enchanted” dimensions at the core of human existence—poetry, passion,
mad love, imagination, magic, myth, the marvelous, dreams, revolt,
utopian ideals—which have been eradicated by this civilization and its
values. In other words, Surrealism is a protest against narrow-minded
rationality, the commercialization of life, petty thinking, and the
boring realism of our money-dominated, industrial society. It is also
the utopian and revolutionary aspiration to “transform life”—an
adventure that is at once intellectual and passionate, political and
magical, poetic and dreamlike. It began in 1924; it continues today.
| — | Michael Löwy, Morning Star: Surrealism, Marxism, Anarchism, Situationism, Utopia, p. 1 |
