The Critical Image Series

The author analyses how the Surrealists utilised the tactics of documentary and how Surrealist ideas in turn influenced the development of documentary photography. The re-emergence of Surrealist photography, has an emphasis on work made in the studio or the darkroom. This, however, is a study of what Louis Aragon called "surrealist realism": the exploration of a real-life surreality encountered on the streets of the city. The first part of the book concentrates on the depiction of the street in Surrealist publications such as the magazine "La Revolution Surrealiste" and Andre Breton's book "Nadja". The second half examines the way that photographers like Brassai and Cartier-Bresson used the tactics of Surrealism to question a conventionally realist reading of the medium. This book throws new light on Surrealism, emphasising its connections with the everyday life of the city. The Surrealist photography of Paris reveals a city where order and control are constantly being undermined. There are also lessons here for contemporary documentary practice.
In the twenties, the Surrealists were aready seeking ways to incorporate subjectivity and ambiguity into documentary, without betraying its essential connections with the real.

So Exotic, So Homemade

by Ian Walker

Published 1 November 2007

In his previous book City Gorged with Dreams (2002), Ian Walker challenged established ideas about Surrealist photography by emphasising the key role played by documentary photographs in Parisian Surrealism. Now Walker turns his attention to the arrival of Surrealism in England in 1936. Examining for the first time the surprising relationship between Surrealism and English documentary photography and film, the book shows that some of the most interesting work of the period was made in the ambiguous spaces between them.

One of the key themes in this book is the relationship between the ‘homely’ and the ‘exotic’, in the innovative mix of poetry and ethnography in Mass-Observation for example, or the shadowed England constructed in the work of Bill Brandt.

Based on extensive archival research, interviews and visits to sites where the photographs were made, this book is rich in detailed analysis yet written in an accessible and often witty style.