Art Movements of 1900s: Massurrealism

Massurrealism

Massurrealism may be the name given to an art genre characterized by the convergence of surrealism and mass media, such as the influence of pop art. The definition was originated in 1992 by American artist, James Seehafer.

History

Massurrealism is really a development of surrealism that emphasizes the result of technology and media on contemporary surrealist imagery. James Seehafer who's credited with coining the word in 1992 said that he was prompted to do this while he had been unable to find a simple explanation to characterise the type of work he was doing, which combined elements of surrealism and mass media, the latter consisting of technology and pop art-”a form of technology art.” He had begun his work using a shopping cart software, which “represented American mass-consumerism that fuels mass-media”, and then incorporated collages of colour photocopies and spray paint with the artist’s traditional medium to oil paint.

In 1995, he assembled a small group show near Ny and located an area cyber-cafe, where he started to post material about massurrealism on the internet arts news groups, inspiring some German art students to stage a massurrealist show. The following year he started their own web site, www.massurrealism.com and began to receive work from other artists, both mixed media and digitally-generated, “which is massurrealism because of its origins in strict electronics”. He credits the World Wide Web with a big part in communicating massurrealism, which spread to La, Mexico and then Europe.

Seehafer has said:

“ I am not credited with inventing a brand new oil painting technique, nor I don’t think I should be credited with starting a new art movement, but instead simply coining a word to categorize the type of present day surrealist art that had been without definition. As a result, word “massurrealism” has brought lots of enthusiasm from artists. Though there are several who believe defining something essentially limits it, a persons condition has always had the need to categorize and classify everything in life. ”

The differentiating factor, according to Seehafer, between surrealism and massurrealism may be the foundation of the first kind in early Twentieth century in Europe prior to the spread of electronic media. It is not easy to define the visual type of massurrealism, though an over-all characteristic may be the use of today's technology to fuse surrealism’s traditional access to the unconscious with pop art’s ironic contradictions.

In 2005, graffiti artist Banksy illicitly hung a rock in the British Museum showing a caveman pushing a shopping cart, which Shelley Esaak of about.com referred to as “a nice tribute to James Seehafer and Massurrealism.”

Massurrealism continues to be influenced through the writings and theories of Cecil Touchon, Marshall McLuhan, and Jean Baudrillard.

Artists

Melanie Marie Kreuzhof. ‘Die tote Stadt, mixed media, 2004.

Alan King, Ginnie Gardiner, and Cecil Touchon are massurrealist artists.

German artist, Melanie Marie Kreuzhof, who describes her are massurrealistic, was commissioned in 2004 through the editor from the Spectakel Salzburger Festsiele Inside magazine to produce an artwork about Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s opera Die tote Stadt in the Salzburg Festival. To make her work she took 9 digital photographs, composed them in a computer and printed the result directly onto canvas, which was then mounted on a wooden frame, done with acrylic paint coupled with objects attached-3 guitar strings, a strand of hair along with a silk scarf. The pictures and elements were based on themes within the opera.