Le Manifeste du Surréalisme, 1924

ANDRÉ BRETON

We are still living under the reign of logic, but the logical processes of our time apply only to the solution of problems of secondary interest. The absolute rationalism which remains in fashion allows for the consideration of only those facts narrowly relevant to our experience. Logical conclusions, on the other hand, escape us. Needless to say, boundaries have been assigned even to ex- perience. It revolves in a cage from which release is becoming increasingly difficult. It too depends upon immediate utility and is guarded by common sense.ant to note that there is no method fixed a priori for the execution of this enterprise, that until the new order it can be considered the province of poets as well as scholars, and that its success does not depend upon the more or less capricious routes which will be followed.
It was only fitting that Freud should appear with his critique on the dream. In fact, it is incredible that this important part of psychic activity has still attracted so little attention. (For, at least from man's birth to his death, thought presents no solution of continuity; the sum of dreaming moments - even taking into consideration pure dream alone, that of sleep - is from the point of view of time no less than the sum of moments of reality, which we shall confine to waking moments.) I have always been astounded by the extreme disproportion in the importance and seriousness assigned to events of the waking moments and to those of sleep by the ordinary observer. Man, when he ceases to sleep, is above all at the mercy of his memory, and the memory normally delights in feebly retracing the circumstance of the dream for him, depriving it of all actual consequence and obliterating the only determinant from the point at which he thinks he abandoned this constant hope, this anxiety, a few hours earlier. He has the illusion of continuing something worthwhile. The dream finds itself relegated to a parenthesis, like the night. And in general it gives no more counsel than the night. This singular state of affairs seems to invite a few reflections:
(con't in comments)

Richard Billingham

Philippe Halsman, Dali Atomicus

"I Love You" Goldmine

http://www.wikihow.com/Say-I-Love-You

Martin Puryear

Martin Puryear
"Believer"
Tulip poplar and pine 23" x 23" x 17"
1977-82

Georges Seurat

Georges Seurat
"Embroidery: The Artist's Mother"
1882–83

Alberto Giacometti

Alberto Giacometti
"The Artist's Mother"
1982-83

Lucian Freud

Lucian Freud
"The Painter's Mother III"
1972

Kara Walker “Insurrection! (Our Tools Were Rudimentary, Yet We Pressed On)”

Darling I don't know why I go to extremes

Call me a joker, call me a fool
Right at this moment I'm totally cool
Clear as a crystal, sharp as a knife
I feel like I'm in the prime of my life
Sometimes it feels like I'm going too fast
I don't know how long this feeling will last
Maybe it's only tonight

Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes

Sometimes I'm tired, sometimes I'm shot
Sometimes I don't know how much more I've got
Maybe I'm headed over the hill
Maybe I've set myself up for the kill
Tell me how much do you think you can take
Until the heart in you is starting to break?
Sometimes it feels like it will

Darling I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low there ain't no in-betweens
You can be sure when I'm gone
I won't be out there too long
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes

Out of the darkness, into the light
Leaving the scene of the crime
Either I'm wrong or I'm perfectly right every time
Sometimes I lie awake, night after night
Coming apart at the seams
Eager to please, ready to fight
Why do I go to extremes?

And if I stand or I fall
It's all or nothing at all
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes

No I don't know why I go to extremes
Too high or too low
There ain't no in-betweens
You can be sure when I'm gone
I won't be out there too long
Darling I don't know why I go to extremes

I don't know why...I don't know why...
I don't know why...I don't know why...
Out in the dark...into the light...

Krishna and Radha Lie in a Bower

"Krishna and Radha Lie in a Bower"
Rajasthan: Kishangarh, ca. 1750
Attributed to Nihal Chand

the first in a series of reality-tv style video "ads" for computer software.  1/2 art project, 1/2 viral marketing experiment.

That is the best I can do

Seek to lead rather than control

I used to want to "save" the world.
To change it.
To make it better.
To lessen the evils.
To lessen the world hurt or the world pain.
To make things easier.
To make people consider others more.

And today I realized how controlling that all is.
It is impossible to control the world.
And that the best I can do is:
Lead.
By example.

I hope that what I put into the world
as far as positive energy
and thoughtfulness
and consideration
and benefit of doubt
and attempts to bring forth beauty from wherever it is beauty comes
somehow infuses those around me
such that their work will infuse others
and so on.

That is the best I can do.

(inspired by Mia's self-portrait post)

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Marina Abramovic, Art must be beautiful, 1975

Boomboom, Boomboom, Boomboom

I destroy the drawers of the brain, and those of social organisation: to sow demoralisation everywhere, and throw heaven's hand into hell, hell's eyes into heaven, to reinstate the fertile wheel of a universal circus in the Powers of reality, and the fantasy of every individual.

Too Soon

Creatures

a collection of creatures ( a.)

Dada Manifesto by Hugo Ball, 1914

Dada is a new tendency in art. One can tell this from the fact that until now nobody knew anything about it, and tomorrow everyone in Zurich will be talking about it. Dada comes from the dictionary. it is terribly simple. In French it means "hobby horse." In German it means "good-by," "Get off my back," "Be seeing you sometime." In Romanian: "Yes, indeed, you are right, that's it. But of course, yes, definitely, right." And so forth.

An international word. Just a word, and the word a movement. Very easy to understand. Quite terribly simple. To make of it an artistic tendency must mean that one is anticipating complications.