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Short speech by Andre Breton before the Socialist Party activists in Santa Cruz, Tenerife

[Santa Cruz, Tenerife, May 1935]

Manuscript

Author

Author André Breton
People cited Rafael Alberti, Louis Aragon, André Breton, Gimenez Caballero, Cruz y Raya, Eastman, Sigmund Freud, Henri Lefebvre, Vladimir Maïakovski, André Malraux, Karl Marx, José Ortega y Gasset, George-Bernard Shaw, Toller, H. G. Wells, Nicolas Ivanovitch Boukharine

Description

Manuscript of a talk given by André Breton in May 1935 in Tenerife

In this text in Breton’s handwriting, comprised of notes and references to quotes and clearly intended to be read, Breton appears in the third person. It is possible to suppose that this was a draft of the speech given in his place at the Circulo de amistad XIV de abril by Agustin Espinosa. The idea of the development of a collective myth, central in Breton’s thoughts at this date, appears as one of the necessary connections between surrealism and revolutionary action; a connection which of course constitutes an alternative to the intolerable submission of the artist to politics. [Atelier André Breton Website, 2005]

Handwritten manuscript, 1935.
- An 11-pages manuscript in-12 format, the first 9 foliated on headed paper from different establishments in Tenerife.
This working manuscript takes stock of Breton’s surrealist campaign in the Canaries:
“At this poetic point of Spain-Tenerife we have come to fix our position for future action, with its concrete conclusions: this position is a function of the general tone of intellectual values. Madrid, on a literary and artistic level, has done nothing other than spray its confusion, disorientation, madness and Salon illiteracy onto the intellectual pettiness of the provinces. All the old junk peddlers have arranged to meet in the capital of Spain.” (Some missing paper). [Auction catalogue, 2003]

Translated by Christina Heflin

Exhibition place