Why I hate automatism

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Stephanie Phua

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STUMBLEUPON

DELICIOUS

In a nutshell: I just don’t get it.

It’s not that I don’t understand Andre Breton’s concept of “pure pyschic automatism”. I get that they believed in letting the subconscious out for a little walk in the park while creating artwork. They believed in the lack of form. I get that. But for lack of sounding arty and chi-chi, I just don’t get why it’s art.

I don’t know if this makes me dumb, or any less cultured; but I’m not going to lie about it, or stand in front of an automatic drawing and exclaim its brilliance.

Now don’t get me wrong, I appreciate many different art forms with abstract concepts behind them – such as colour field painting or action painting; even veristic surrealism. But there’s something about surrealist automatism that I just don’t understand.

Automatic Drawing by André Masson (1924) via MoMA

Let’s talk about automatic drawing – artists used it as a means of expressing the subconscious, by letting their tool of choice move randomly across a surface. Mark-making was a result of chance and perhaps accidents.

Now let me think out loud and ask some questions:

If chance governed how your artwork looked like, is it right to say that the act of making an artwork by chance makes you an artist?

Jean Arp, Untitled (Collage with Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance) (1916-1917) via Smarthistory.org

If it was bourne out of psychological experiences, won’t that make it a psychological experience instead? And does that make every psychologist an artist?

If I gave my baby cousin a pencil and he made some etchings on a piece of paper would that be pure psychic automatism? In school, we were made to take a pencil and do a rubbing over various surfaces as part of our biology class – did we all produce frottage art pieces then? And to be honest, grattage and decalcomania could be child’s play. Isn’t it true that any layman could employ the techniques used?

Or is it merely through the conscious act of dabbling with the unconscious that this is deemed art?

Am I missing a point here? Perhaps you have the answers – feel free to leave your thoughts on this!

COMMENTS

toby walshaw 16.03.2012 i personally think the automatic techniques are just a first stage and are then interpreted and worked up in a more finished peaces.

Kwok Pan 28.02.2011 I think the point is not about the amount of technique or knowledge required to create a piece of work, but about the concept and the form by which it is conveyed. For Masson and Arp, they probably have some thoughts about representing the idea of the subconscious or chance, so the act of art consist not just of making the piece, but also incubating the concept, as well as presenting and titling the work among many things. Whether you are convinced by them is a another thing altogether, but their work is definitely different from your baby cousin's doodles.

Why I hate automatism

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