DYN (journal)
Encyclopedia
DYN was an art magazine founded by the Austrian-Mexican Surrealist
Wolfgang Paalen
, published in Mexico City
, and distributed in New York
, Paris
, and London
from 1942 through 1944. Only six issues were produced.
Paalen dominated its contents as editor and contributed its major topics in seven large essays and numerous smaller reviews and articles. DYNs editorial board later enlisted a number of associated thinkers and artists, including Miguel Covarrubias
, César Moro
, Henry Miller
, Anaïs Nin
, Gordon Onslow Ford
and Robert Motherwell
. Each edition covered various subjects and themes, such as poetry
, visual arts
, anthropology
, science
, and philosophy
, and was illustrated by a wide range of artists, including Manuel Álvarez Bravo
, Alice Rahon
, William Baziotes
, Motherwell, Roberto Matta
, Jackson Pollock
, Harry Holtzman
, and Henry Moore
.
In the first number Paalen emphasized his will to rediscuss some of the fundamentals in surrealist theory and publicly announces to his friend Breton his "farewell to surrealism." Paalen's main intention of this provocation was to tease the dogmatic attitudes implicit in surrealist theory. Breton, however, reacted as deeply offended, and in the preface of VVV argued: "We reject the lie of an open surrealism, in which anything is possible".
In the second issue he published a survey on dialectical materialism
which consisted of a set of three questions sent to two dozen outstanding scholars and writers, and the statements of those who responded. In a provocative and straightforward way Paalen enquires after the academic validity of the philosophy of Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels
as a science. Half of the addressees replied, amongst them Albert Einstein
, Clement Greenberg
, and Bertrand Russell
. The majority answered all questions No. Russel answered bluntly: "I think the metaphysics of both Hegel and Marx plain nonsense - Marx's claim to be 'science' is no more justified than Mary Baker Eddy's."
The positive impact on New York's younger generation of artists and their first publications, such as Possibilities (ed. by Motherwell and Rosenblum in 1947) was crucial. Motherwell translated Paalen's programatical essay "Image Nouvelle" into English ("The New Image") and published a collection of essays from DYN as the first number of Problems of Contemporary Art in 1945 (New York Wittenborn
). Motherwell's collage Surprise and Inspiration (Peggy Guggenheim Collection
) was named after Paalen's essay with the same title. Motherwell had translated this article for DYN and the collage was published next to it.
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
Wolfgang Paalen
Wolfgang Paalen
Wolfgang Paalen was an Austrian-Mexican painter and theorist.-Early life:Wolfgang Paalen was born in Vienna in 1905, as the first of four sons of the Austrian-Jewish merchant and inventor Gustav Robert Paalen, and his German wife, the actress Clothilde Emilie Gunkel...
, published in Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...
, and distributed in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, and London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
from 1942 through 1944. Only six issues were produced.
Paalen dominated its contents as editor and contributed its major topics in seven large essays and numerous smaller reviews and articles. DYNs editorial board later enlisted a number of associated thinkers and artists, including Miguel Covarrubias
Miguel Covarrubias
José Miguel Covarrubias Duclaud was a Mexican painter and caricaturist, ethnologist and art historian among other interests. In 1924 at the age of 19 he moved to New York City armed with a grant from the Mexican government, tremendous talent, but very little English speaking skill. Luckily,...
, César Moro
César Moro
César Moro is the pseudonym of Alfredo Quíspez Asín a Peruvian born poet and painter. He travelled to Paris in 1925 and most of his poetic works are written in French.-External links:* *...
, Henry Miller
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...
, Anaïs Nin
Anaïs Nin
Anaïs Nin was a French-Cuban author, based at first in France and later in the United States, who published her journals, which span more than 60 years, beginning when she was 11 years old and ending shortly before her death, her erotic literature, and short stories...
, Gordon Onslow Ford
Gordon Onslow Ford
Gordon Onslow Ford was one of the last surviving members of the 1930s Paris surrealist group surrounding André Breton....
and Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell American painter, printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School , which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston....
. Each edition covered various subjects and themes, such as poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
, visual arts
Visual arts
The visual arts are art forms that create works which are primarily visual in nature, such as ceramics, drawing, painting, sculpture, printmaking, design, crafts, and often modern visual arts and architecture...
, anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
, science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
, and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, and was illustrated by a wide range of artists, including Manuel Álvarez Bravo
Manuel Álvarez Bravo
Manuel Álvarez Bravo was a Mexican photographer.Álvarez Bravo was born in Mexico City on February 4, 1902. He came from a family of artists and writers, and met several other prominent artists who encouraged his work when he was young, including Tina Modotti and Diego Rivera...
, Alice Rahon
Alice Rahon
Alice Rahon was a French Surrealist painter and writer.- Life :Alice Rahon was born in the village Chenecey-Buillon in the French Franche-Comté region. In 1931 she met the Austrian painter Wolfgang Paalen whom she married later. She was inspired by his Surrealist poetry...
, William Baziotes
William Baziotes
William Baziotes was an American painter influenced by Surrealism and was a contributor to Abstract Expressionism.-Life and career:...
, Motherwell, Roberto Matta
Roberto Matta
Roberto Sebastián Antonio Matta Echaurren , better known as Roberto Matta, was one of Chile's best-known painters and a seminal figure in 20th century abstract expressionist and surrealist art....
, Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
, Harry Holtzman
Harry Holtzman
Harry Holtzman was an American artist and founding member of the American Abstract Artists group.-Early life:At the age of fourteen, Holtzman visited the Société Anonyme’s 1926 “International Exhibition of Modern Art” at the Brooklyn Museum and developed an early interest in advanced art with the...
, and Henry Moore
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
.
In the first number Paalen emphasized his will to rediscuss some of the fundamentals in surrealist theory and publicly announces to his friend Breton his "farewell to surrealism." Paalen's main intention of this provocation was to tease the dogmatic attitudes implicit in surrealist theory. Breton, however, reacted as deeply offended, and in the preface of VVV argued: "We reject the lie of an open surrealism, in which anything is possible".
In the second issue he published a survey on dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism
Dialectical materialism is a strand of Marxism synthesizing Hegel's dialectics. The idea was originally invented by Moses Hess and it was later developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels...
which consisted of a set of three questions sent to two dozen outstanding scholars and writers, and the statements of those who responded. In a provocative and straightforward way Paalen enquires after the academic validity of the philosophy of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
and Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels was a German industrialist, social scientist, author, political theorist, philosopher, and father of Marxist theory, alongside Karl Marx. In 1845 he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research...
as a science. Half of the addressees replied, amongst them Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
, Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg
Clement Greenberg was an American essayist known mainly as an influential visual art critic closely associated with American Modern art of the mid-20th century...
, and Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...
. The majority answered all questions No. Russel answered bluntly: "I think the metaphysics of both Hegel and Marx plain nonsense - Marx's claim to be 'science' is no more justified than Mary Baker Eddy's."
The positive impact on New York's younger generation of artists and their first publications, such as Possibilities (ed. by Motherwell and Rosenblum in 1947) was crucial. Motherwell translated Paalen's programatical essay "Image Nouvelle" into English ("The New Image") and published a collection of essays from DYN as the first number of Problems of Contemporary Art in 1945 (New York Wittenborn
Wittenborn
Wittenborn is a municipality in the district of Segeberg, in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany....
). Motherwell's collage Surprise and Inspiration (Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Peggy Guggenheim Collection
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is an art museum on the Grand Canal in Venice, Italy. It is one of several museums of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation....
) was named after Paalen's essay with the same title. Motherwell had translated this article for DYN and the collage was published next to it.
Sources
- Kloyber, Christian, ed. Wolfgang Paalen’s DYN: The Complete Reprint. Vienna and New York: Springer, 2000.
See also
- AcéphaleAcéphaleAcéphale designates both a public review created by Georges Bataille and a secret and esoteric society formed by Bataille and some other members who had sworn to keep silence.-Acéphale, the review:Dated 24 June 1936, the first issue was composed of only eight pages...
, a surrealist review created by Georges Bataille, published from 1936 to 1939 - Documents, a surrealist magazine edited by Georges Bataille from 1929 to 1930
- MinotaureMinotaureMinotaure, published between 1933 and 1939, was a Surrealist-oriented publication founded by Albert Skira in Paris. The editors were André Breton and Pierre Mabille. It was a luxurious publication, sporting original artworks on its cover by prestigious artists like Pablo Picasso...
, a primarily surrealist-oriented publication founded by Albert SkiraAlbert SkiraAlbert Skira was a Swiss publisher.In 1933, he contacted André Breton about a new journal, which he planned to be the most luxurious art and literary review the Surrealists had seen, featuring a slick format with many color illustrations. Skira's restriction was that Breton was not allowed to use...
, published in Paris from 1933 to 1939 - La Révolution surréalisteLa Révolution surréalisteLa Révolution surréaliste was a publication by the Surrealists in Paris. Twelve issues were published between 1924 and 1929....
, a seminal Surrealist publication founded by André Breton, published in Paris from 1924 to 1929 - ViewView (magazine)View was an American literary and art magazine published from 1940 to 1947 by artist and writer Charles Henri Ford, and writer and film critic Parker Tyler. The magazine is best known for introducing Surrealism to the American public....
, an American art magazine, primarily covering avant-garde and surrealist art, published from 1940 to 1947