"The surrealists postulated that art should cease to be art, and they insisted that they were not artists and were not interested in art. According to their theory, the present phase of civilization (the phase of class societies) created the fundamental division between the human creator and the human user of art. Their great vision that art will be made by all was not (and is not) only a romantic illusion inherited from Hegel and the utopians. It is still a magnificent chal- lenge to the social conditionsboth then and nowwhich led to the separation of art and life..." Ivan Svitk, Surrealism and Art Philosopher and critic Ivan Svitk was among the leading Czech intellectuals during the lead-up to the Prague Spring of 1968, when tentative reforms by Communist Party leaders in Czechoslovakia sparked a mass movement for democratic socialism. By the time a Soviet-led invasion put an end to this movement and forced Svitk into exile, Svitk had influenced a generation of politicized youth with his works of Marxist humanist philosophy, social commentary, cultural critique, unconventional poetry, and satirical prose. This books editor, Joseph Grim Feinberg, is a social theorist at the Philosophy Institute of the Czech Republics Academy of Sciences andlike Svitkhas collaborated closely with surrealist groups in Chicago and Prague. Taking up Svitks own, largely-unrealized proposals for publication, Grim Feinberg has collected Svitks most provocative writing on aesthetic theory, interspersing it with a selection of Svitks poetry and creative prose. In the resulting volume, Svitk explores the possibility of a world in which art will be made by all, and he defends humanitys quixotic right to fight against old illusions so that new illusions might be born.

Svitak, Ivan; Feinberg, Joseph Grim; Lass, Andy

Ivan Sviták

Chicago: Charles H Kerr Pub Co

United States, United States of America

Feb 17, 2015

PS, 2015

Source title: The Windmills of Humanity: On Culture and Surrealism in the Manipulated World

147 pages : 22 cm
Includes bibliographical references (pages 145-147)

2023-06-28