Modern art and poetry, especially in the period between Romanticism and Surrealism, sought to open up the perspective of the infinite and to make everyone discover their own uniqueness, including their own share of darkness. They constituted a revolt against “the unacceptable human condition”. But in recent decades, much of contemporary culture, as well as computer networks, are waging war on the imagination, burying it under an “excess of reality” through the production of meaningless images. The deforestation of the imagination is as catastrophic as the deforestation of the Amazon.
Annie Le Brun (1942) became acquainted with André Breton and Surrealism as a young woman. She drew inspiration from it for a vast body of poetry and non-fiction. Placing herself outside movements and institutions, she insisted on the liberating value of imagination, especially in Romanticism, the Gothic novel, the work of the Marquis de Sade, modern poetry, and above all in Surrealism. In Italy, “L’eccesso di realtà. La mercificazione del sensibile” (2020).
Communications Office of the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome
Coordination: Prof. Guglielmo Gigliotti g.gigliotti@abaroma.it
Collaboration: Chiara Picco, Martina Macchia, Marianna Pontillo comunicazione@abaroma.it