The Premises of the Subject

This thesis focuses on the Double Game of Subversion: Between Dadaism, Surrealism and Contemporary Art. It is research conducted in aesthetics that also questions literary, historical and sociological notions. This is articulated in two axes: on the one hand, a historical comparison between three artistic periods, and on the other hand, a conceptual analysis of subversion. By identifying in contemporary production resonances of Dadaist and Surrealist art in terms of form and themes addressed, the aim is to question this heritage, in the sense of continuity as well as rupture, through the concept of subversion.

Reading Henri Béhar and Michel Carassou's book, Dada: histoire d'une subversion2 was fundamental to my study as it explains the necessity of such a clean slate. This notion can be read at several levels. Subversion first refers to the political field. The Dadaists' provocations, far from being gratuitous, challenge Western values that did not prevent the First World War. Art becomes a catharsis that leads to a "poetics of insurrection"3. Influenced by Bakunin's anarchism, the Dadaists want to destroy all authoritarian powers that hinder freedom of expression and creation. Political subversion accompanies a true plastic revolution: the Dadaists question the status of the artwork and transgress conventions. This dialectic between art and politics is also observed among the Surrealists, inspired by the cry of rage of their elders. Surrealism also brings together very diverse personalities, mixing genres, breaking down barriers between arts, inventing new poetics: automatic writing, collages, frottages, rayographs, mannequins... First attracted like the Dadaists to libertarian philosophies, they seek to structure their commitment and turn to the Communist Party during the rise of fascism between the wars. The dilemma between free art and the attempt at art "in the service of revolution"4 to which they were confronted leaned in favor of independent art endowed with true critical force. The subversive artist, far from being a militant enslaved to propaganda, freely creates a work whose polysemy raises questions of a historical, sociological, political nature... His only watchword: desire, symbol of life and revolt.

Interest in current events, regular reading of publications concerning contemporary art, frequent visits to studios, galleries and museums, wanderings in cities and countryside offering "open-air art" led me to identify correspondences with the avant-gardes that opened a breach in art history. Their subversive character still influences many Western artists today in terms of forms, subjects addressed or creative processes (let us cite Philippe Ramette, Cindy Sherman, Andreas Serrano, Wim Delvoye...) However, the change in context leads to redefining subversion which sometimes transforms into provocation among current artists.

Double Game: Nature and Stakes

Setting up a research method was fundamental to deepen this initial intuition. First, etymology specifies this dialectic between subversion and provocation: subversion comes from Latin subvertere: to overthrow, to upset, to turn upside down and the prefix sub indicates a discrete, underground logic. Provocation comes from Latin pro: forward and vocare: to call and enters more into a demonstrative, even exhibitionist logic. Thus, subversion is not necessarily provocative and provocation is not necessarily subversive. The title of this thesis "double game" reveals this conceptual ambiguity. It also corresponds to the comparison method used: to put these periods in tension, to show their continuities and ruptures: the years 1910-1940 for Dadaism and Surrealism and the years 1980-2010 for contemporary art because it is from the 1980s that it becomes institutional and constitutes a genre in its own right with its codes, its institutions, its distribution networks.

The whole interest of this study is to mix a double approach: both conceptual and historical. The analysis of the concept of subversion is carried out through the examination of works from different periods, a method that leads to illuminating several forms of subversion. The confrontation of works leads to identifying correspondences in terms of themes: anti-clericalism, transgression of morality, contestation of social and sexual norms, and in terms of mediums: collages, ready-mades, installations, environments. However, current artists, even when they claim a filiation with these avant-gardes, become aware of their postmodern posture. Unlike the avant-gardes, a structured group with a leader and a manifesto, prominent Western contemporary artists display their individuality and more fragmented aesthetics. Some assume their appropriationist approach: in 2013, Gilles Barbier thus hijacks L'œil cacodylate by Picabia, respecting the original composition while the signatures have become stamps, Sherrie Levine takes up Marcel Duchamp's famous urinal but changes the material: in her work After Marcel Duchamp (1991), ceramic transforms into bronze, as if she were inverting the logic of the ready-made, passing from a banal object to a sculptural object with noble material. Others are inspired by the humor and wordplay of the avant-gardes: in the Dadaist wake, the Présence Panchounette collective attacks all seriousness and favors mixing genres. In their installation Le poids de la culture5, books replace the cast iron discs of a weight bench. Humor arises from the introduction of an object into a context other than its own, creating an unusual effect. Here, the book recalling the cultural sphere strangely invests the sports space. Moreover, the illustration of a popular expression at face value also creates a visual and semantic shock. Under a "prankster" aspect, this piece questions the role of culture in our contemporary societies. Furthermore, Présence Panchounette targets aesthetics which is a form of ideology. Self-mockery becomes serious and gives rise to reflection on the artist, the work and the spectator. Other artists still engage in activism like Gianni Motti who plays the role of the jester. Figure of the artist-parasite6, he infiltrates the cracks of power and exploits the media to disseminate his actions. These fall into the register of the absurd when, for example, in June 1992, he contacts the Keystone agency and declares himself responsible for the earthquake that causes, among other things, in the Californian desert, a crack seventy-four kilometers long.7 He thus poses in newspapers as a prison inmate, holding a sign on which the cause of his arrest is inscribed. In other photographs, he shows the camera a diagram revealing the amplitude of the earthquake on the Richter scale. His actions may appear more political when he manages to infiltrate a Human Rights session at the UN in November 1997 and takes the place of the absent Indonesian delegate. The troublemaker artist penetrates territories external to the art world and his buffoonery has a direct impact on reality (even if he doesn't revolutionize the course of things, which he refrains from claiming). Thus, during this UN session, Gianni Motti speaks in favor of minorities and rallies other representatives to his cause, provoking the interruption of the session as a protest. Even if this last performance seems to be guided by a more serious purpose than his "telluric ready-made"8, Motti's gestures borrow from the farce register and approach Dadaist actions. As for Olivier Blanckart, his invectives and provocative performances are not without recalling Surrealist scandals. However, he acts alone and does not claim a revolutionary momentum that animated his elders.

However, his fierce struggle against the institution and finance opposes many artists such as Jeff Koons, Maurizio Cattelan, Damien Hirst, sponsored by the lords of modern times. Avant-garde subversion that rhymed with radicality and innovation transforms in this context into a style effect and takes on a spectacular dimension. Subversion is then atrophied, sterilized by the art market that phagocytizes it. Indeed, when it is recovered by a power, it becomes more provocative than subversive and loses its irreverent scope. These contradictory relations between subversion and subsidy according to Rainer Rochlitz's expression were at the heart of my concerns, particularly in the third chapter.

Method and Plan

This transversal approach led to the development of a plan in three parts: subversion-destruction in which the context of war and the birth of practices imbued with iconoclastic humor and nihilism that topples idols are addressed. However, subversion cannot be envisaged as mere destruction. The clean slate in turn engenders other poetics and ethics developed in the second chapter: subversion – construction. The Dadaists and Surrealists undermine the old beauty to create new know-how: ready-mades, photomontages, mannequins, solarizations, frottages... However, the establishment of codes, however innovative they may be, can also turn into conventions. Subversion sometimes transforms into an imperative of creation, a fashion effect, then joining the logic of provocation. This is exploited by many powers: media, political and financial, which led us to re-examine the posture and commitment of the current artist in the third chapter entitled subversion – convention. These chapters, far from being categories that imprison, favor passages between the three notions.

Faced with a very dense bibliography covering a transversal notion and three periods, the necessity of making choices and hierarchizing imposes itself. Theoretical works, historical texts, exhibition catalogs, journals, radio programs but also literary and philosophical writings have brought different semantic and plastic insights. They also constitute precious tools by allowing to avoid several pitfalls. It is first of all a question of not adopting too Manichean a view by remaining prisoner of a nostalgic past and making an apology for the Dadaist and Surrealist artist, with sincere commitment, taking risks and judging the contemporary artist recovered by the art market, cynical, opportunistic and only provocative in a moralizing manner. Throughout this study, I was able to distinguish subversive contemporary works like Him by Maurizio Cattelan, better known for his gratuitous scandals. This installation consists of a wax mannequin representing a little boy kneeling, hands joined in an attitude of recollection and forgiveness. The spectator sees the silhouette from behind and is led to walk around to discover the character from the front. It is at this moment that he is taken aback when he discovers Hitler's face. The work poses ethical questions: can we reproduce Hitler under the features of a child, expiating his fault, he who in the collective unconscious remains a monster? The title Him, both impersonal and denunciatory, translates the ambivalence of the work. This privileges complexity on the plastic and semantic level. I have drawn several portraits of artists while highlighting lines of force and noting the mutation of subversion into provocation among certain current leading artists. The second difficulty was to take into account current events with a distance necessary to the researcher's posture. The tragic attacks at the Charlie Hebdo headquarters of which I was informed at the time of correcting a part devoted to the "laughter of resistance"9 first affected me emotionally. Then, when emotion gave way to analysis, I was able to put this event into perspective with my work. The passages devoted to the context of creation and reception of works of art already written were highlighted, this parameter being essential. Subversion and provocation are not immutable essences but are defined and redefined according to criteria, rules, laws related to a political, religious, social or artistic power.

Aesthetics: At the Crossroads of Disciplinary Fields

This thesis topic encouraged me to explore different territories: aesthetics of course but also literature, history, philosophy, sociology, to take side paths, to develop a thought "in archipelago"10, according to the words of the poet René Char. I made "side steps" by carrying out different but complementary activities: setting up a partnership between the University of Bordeaux Montaigne, the Centre Pompidou Mobile and the Aquitaine Region with the organization of a study day entitled Concrete Utopias11 and the curatorship of an exhibition entitled Tangentes, participation in an international colloquium entitled Transgression(s) organized by ADEFFI12 and in a study day on provocation organized by the journal Les chantiers de la création of the University of Provence in Aix-en-Provence13, preparation of the exhibition Le surréalisme et l'objet14 alongside the curator Didier Ottinger during an internship carried out in 2011 at the Musée National d'Art Moderne. I had to choose contemporary pieces in echo with Surrealist works: a practical application of my thesis problematic. Exchanges with gallery owners and artists refined my view of the current art scene and the transcription of the interview with Arnaud Labelle-Rojoux (exhibited as part of Surrealism and the Object) testifies to the complexity of the Dadaist and Surrealist heritage.

All these concrete experiences refer to the primary meaning of aesthetics, to its etymology aiesthesis: the science of the sensible. My method evolved between the beginning of the doctorate and the end. First, I started from concepts to go towards works then I took the reverse path. Confrontation with works in all their materiality, their flesh was necessary to not imprison them in a reading grid and to conduct a sensitive approach. In this respect, aesthetics is as much a practice as a theory. This practice is above all that of the gaze. It is the trigger for philosophical questioning, it provokes a revolution of the mind. The last part of the third chapter highlights this relationship between subversion of the gaze, eroticism and revolution.

Subversion privileges an erotic relationship to the work while provocation conceals a pornographic dimension. In the third chapter, the analyses of works by Salvador Dalí and Jeff Koons or Max Ernst and Maurizio Cattelan aim to compare plastic devices. Thus, for example, Max Ernst's painting The Virgin Mary Spanking the Infant Jesus Before Three Witnesses which seems much wiser at first glance than Maurizio Cattelan's La Nona Ora is in reality the most subversive. It subtly plays with artistic, religious and moral codes while introducing transgressive details that appeal to an eroticism of the gaze. The latter does not directly penetrate the work as in the case of La Nona Ora but lets itself be seduced and misled by the different levels of reading. This desire to see leads to an emancipation of the gaze. This goes hand in hand with a revolutionary force. L'Age d'or made a year after Un chien andalou insists more particularly on the putrefaction provoked by bourgeois morality which destroys man's desires and hopes. "Mad Love"15 becomes a weapon of combat that defies social contingencies: "My general idea in writing with Buñuel the scenario of L'Age d'or was to present the straight and pure 'conduct' line of a being who pursues love through the ignoble humanitarian, patriotic and other miserable mechanisms of reality."16 Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí pay homage to the power of amorous desire, the only one capable of liberating man. This desire embodies revolt against the idea of homeland, religion and civilization: "... From the violence with which we see amorous passion animated in a being we can judge his capacity for refusal, making light of the temporary inhibition where his education maintains him or not, to lend him better than a symptomatic role, from the revolutionary point of view. [...] The frenzy so decried, outside of which we, surrealists, can, refuse to hold as valid any expression of art..."17

The parallel between amorous passion and political subversion runs through the film. This revolutionary power of desire is not just a theme but a way of being in the world and creating. "The expression of art" cannot be conceived without this essential "frenzy", on the part of the artist as well as the spectator. L'Age d'or like Un chien andalou fascinate the spectator's eye and trigger an intense amorous and revolutionary desire.

This film symbolizes the engine of subversion. It is a living relationship between the artist, the work and the spectator. The artist doubts, questions himself to avoid a deadly repetition. He creates a work that privileges suggestion, the absent image appealing to the spectator's imagination who completes these reserve spaces as one would say for a watercolor. This work leads him to subvert his own gaze, always situated beyond what it lets glimpse, "a subversion beyond suspicion"18 as Edmond Jabès writes. Subversion is an ethics of life, creation and research. Always in motion, it incites us to displace our gaze and put our certainties to the test, and recommends "to be wary in general of all [knowledge] that threatens to become fixed"19 but also of "all art that threatens to become fixed."