Reality | Surreality: From Early Twentieth Century Surrealism to the Surrealist Painting of the Chaotic, Globalized Twenty-First Century
In the spring of 1916, Tristan Tzara (1896–1963), Hugo Ball (1886–1927), Richard Huelsenbeck (1892–1974), Jean Arp (1886–1966), and Marcel Janco (1895–1984), a group of poets, writers, and painters who had gathered in Zurich to escape the First World War, launched the Dada movement in a bar called the Cabaret Voltaire. These literary and artistic figures, in response to the existing social reality that inspired in them aversion and even fear, sought a creative space removed from the horrors of war. They advocated a "return to naturalism" via a creative practice that considered noise, the unconscious, automatic writing, and language unbound by the rules of logic as promising means for artistic expression.
The word “surrealism” had originally been coined by Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918), but it gained widespread recognition when André Breton (1896–1966) used the term in his essay collection, Soluble Fish , to describe the literary and artistic phenomenon which, since coming into existence with the disruptive arrival of Dada, had continued to gain traction after the war. As the “Pope of Surrealism,” Breton had always been skeptical of reality itself understood as a logical, rational order, of which the absurdism of Dada constituted an explicit negation. He turned to scientific theory—more precisely, psychoanalytic theory—in an attempt to renounce a representational artistic practice based on a logical and ordered conception of experience. Peeling back the superficial layer of rational consciousness revealed a strange and dense realm of hitherto undiscovered imagery: the world of the unconscious. In his “Manifesto of Surrealism,” Breton stated that he believed the contradiction between dream and reality could be resolved within “a kind of absolute reality, a surreality .” 1
Breton rigorously defined Apollinaire’s concept of Surrealism as follows:
SURREALISM, n. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express—verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner—the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern. 2
Breton prized above all the “marvelous” in literature, which he thought could only be written in a passive state of receptivity. Writers and artists would therefore ultimately serve as mere recording instruments for the images emerging from the unconscious. Breton went on to say that “Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought,” 3 and concluded that “the marvelous is always beautiful, anything marvelous is beautiful, in fact only the marvelous is beautiful.” 4 Whereas literature could accomplish this through the application of automatic writing done in a state of semi-consciousness, painters could do so through the juxtaposition of unrelated images expressly intended to manifest absurdity in visual form.
Breton’s manifesto provided theoretical impetus for the prospect of creating artistic imagery that emerged from the unconscious. Surrealist painting in 1920s Europe was less a graphic illustration of Freud’s theories and more a reexamination of the history of art under the influence of Freud’s ideas. By establishing a new visual realm that drew from the ephemeral images of the unconscious, it expanded the possibilities of painting. The art and ideas developed by the Surrealists were widely disseminated in the West and beyond, and came to influence creative practice globally.
In China, the spread of Surrealism led to the drafting of new manifestos and artistic experiments as early as the 1930s, most notably from Guangzhou’s Chinese Independent Art Association (Zhonghua duli meishu xiehui), a group that included Liang Xihong, Li Dongping, Zhao Shou, and Zeng Ming. These artists, who had studied in Japan, upon returning to China published numerous articles expressing their fascination with Surrealism. The October 1924 issue of the journal Artistic Wind ( Yifeng ) featured Breton’s “Manifesto of Surrealism” alongside various works by Surrealist figures like Salvador Dalí, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Joan Miró, and Yves Tanguy. Although war and subsequent political developments unfortunately cut short these Chinese artists’ modernist experiments, the Chinese Independent Art Association has come to be associated with the art and ideas of Surrealism. Decades later, the social and economic reforms that began in 1978 prompted an intellectual awakening in China, which in turn paved the way for a new wave of Surrealist activity. 5
In October 1985, the Jiangsu Art Museum in Nanjing hosted Jiangsu Youth Art Week: Large-Scale Modern Art Exhibition ( Jiangsu qingnian yishu zhou · daxing xiandai yishu zhan ), featuring over 300 works by 138 artists. The exhibition was one of the few major art events of the ’85 New Wave art movement. 6 Amongst the participating artists were Cao Xiaodong, Chai Xiaogang, Ding Fang, Guan Ce, Ren Rong, Shen Qin, Wu Xiaoyun, Xu Lei, Xu Yihui, Yang Yingsheng, and Yang Zhilin. Despite the distinctive styles of many of the works on display, it was notable that a certain undefinable, complex, and somber mood permeated the show. In his review of the exhibition, critic Shen Xinggong observed that certain pieces “evoked a sense of despondency with the narrow confines of an individual’s everyday life.” There was indeed a palpable feeling of pessimism and spiritual decay in works like Yang Yingsheng’s White Doves Behind Backs and a Fading Rubik’s Cube ( Bei beiying zhezhu de bai gezi yu zhengzai piaoshi de mofang ), Xu Yihui’s South of Moleyate ( Moleyate nanbu ), Wu Xiaoyun’s Sliced Apple ( Bei qiekai de pingguo ), Ren Rong’s Nirvana’s Summons ( Yuanji de zhaohuan ), Cao Xiaodong’s No Man’s Land No. 1 ( Wuren didai 1 hao ), and Shen Qin’s An Intellectual Dialogue ( Shitu duihua ). Moreover, the thematic ambiguity seemed to imply a kind of world-weary skepticism.
Yang Yingsheng’s White Doves Behind Backs and a Fading Rubik’s Cube is firmly situated in the Surrealist tradition. The painting’s title is a succinct description of what it depicts: a Rubik’s Cube floating in midair and dripping a liquid that seems to dissolve into nothingness—an image that can only appear in dreams. The work may suggest the arrival of an era beyond our grasp where the future is governed by a surreal force that renders humans utterly insignificant and therefore more fragile than ever before. The artist remarked that people feel no anguish over their memories of history or the past:
It is rather the present that troubles them, the lingering influence and legacy of things from the past now forgotten. To escape this torment, people can only pin their hopes on the future, but the future is elusive. You can be no more certain of what it might bring as you can be of the contents of a package mailed to you by a stranger. No matter how vivid your imagination, you have no way of knowing whether you might find in the package something better than expected, something worse, or perhaps just an empty box. The future can only be met with the word “perhaps,” behind which lurk both bliss and catastrophe. This is why people both yearn for the future and fear it. 7
A similar sense of the ephemeral finds alternative expression in works like Ren Rong’s Nirvana’s Summons and Xu Yihui’s South of Moleyate , in which reflections on history, indigenous mythology, and ancient cultures feature prominently. In Nirvana’s Summons , a colossal Buddha statue appears to beckon to wandering souls traversing a boundless desert. The image of the Buddha here is stripped of its significance as a religious or mystical symbol, functioning more as a simple signifier of history or the past, while also conveying connotations of psychological peace and refuge. This ancient historical monument acts as a concrete point of reference. We could do worse than to interpret the naked figure standing in the bottom left corner as the artist himself, consciously proselytizing a multitude of souls to return to history, to the past, to a reality that can be properly grasped. The scene depicted in Xu Yihui’s South of Moleyate , on the other hand, resembles a photograph of a scientific expedition to the ancient past or perhaps to a distant planet. The painting’s cool-toned palette, elongated shadows, round full moon, and petrified lifeforms create an atmosphere that appears inhospitable to life and imbued with a sense of magnitude, strangeness, and desolation.
Unlike the producers of Scar art, these artists expressed skepticism about the “march toward a new era.” 8 They did not believe they could determine their own fate, nor did they have any faith in the concept of a persistent and eternal pursuit of truth or the existence of an absolute ideal. Their claim to grasp present reality through art was, in fact, a form of escapism from reality.
The ’85 Art Movement arose as a result of artists responding to their first exposure to Freud’s psychoanalytic theories. It is difficult to determine how many of them truly understood Freud’s ideas, but it is clear that they turned to the complex and obscure theoretical terminology they encountered in the wave of new translations from the West to defend their artistic output. To varying extents, these artists felt a sense of responsibility in their discussions of topics like the unconscious, primal instinct, and sexuality, through which they hoped to elevate the significance and depth of their creative output. Most of them were well aware that art was not simply a matter of disinterestedly recording one’s impulses or playing games with the unconscious.
Like the diversity of Western ideas being introduced at the time, most critics agree that the range of modernist styles that constituted the ’85 New Wave contributed to a form of intellectual liberation that was not limited to the evolution of art and culture. When an aesthetic style, ideology, or philosophical concept appears in China’s art circles, it invariably intersects with the broader social context of China. The reception of Freud’s theories and the adoption of Surrealist techniques cannot be divorced from this historical backdrop.
When we consider the rapid and tumultuous transformations that have taken place in Chinese society since 1985—a period of revolution in the nation’s politics, economics, and culture—it is not difficult to understand why many avant-garde Chinese artists were so fascinated by the Surrealist aesthetic. Surrealism resonated with the sense of disorientation that had gripped this new generation of young artists. They sensed the arrival of a new era, which Zhang Qun and Meng Luding referenced in the title of their famous work In the New Age — The Enlightenment of Adam and Eve ( Zai xin shidai — Yadang yu Xiawa de qishi ), but they had no idea what it would ultimately bring. All signs indicated that an even more perplexing reality was looming, one that seemed almost impossible to see beyond. As such, for many artists, looking to the realm of the surreal, historical legacies, and foreign cultural imports for answers to the questions that plagued them became a preferable approach.
Surrealism is far more semantically ambiguous than realism. However, this very ambiguity speaks to both the complexity of the reality artists are confronting and the intricate ways humans perceive and contemplate it. Yang Zhilin’s Man Is Evolved from Fish — Man Likes to Eat Fish ( Ren shi yu de jinhua — ren xi shi yu ) and Shen Qin’s An Intellectual Dialogue attempted to grapple with precisely these complexities. In his interpretation of his own work, Yang Zhilin framed the question this way:
Humanity’s greatest enigma is none other than itself. There are perhaps a million possible paths leading to our ultimate end, but we are unable to grasp them. We can barely even reveal fragments of the truth, for they are each links in an interlocking chain. Who are we ? We see this question etched into ancient stones. But where does the answer lie? Who can even respond? 9
Addressing the same problematic, Shen Qin’s An Intellectual Dialogue differs from Yang Zhilin’s Man Is Evolved from Fish — Man Likes to Eat Fish in terms of medium, style, and general tenor. Stylistically, Shen Qin tends more toward Surrealism, employing traditional, historical cultural symbols in a philosophical inquiry expressed through the work. Xu Lei’s The Transgressor ( Yuyuezhe ) bears some resemblance to the works of René Magritte (1898–1965) in the way that he depicts a soul advancing through a surreal space, apparently in the hope of deciphering an unnamed mystery. Here he conveys the sense of disorientation one feels having broken free from constraints and the trepidation that accompanies the inevitable march toward the future.
In the year following the Jiangsu Youth Art Week exhibition, Cao Xiaodong, Chai Xiaogang, Ding Fang, Guan Ce, Shen Qin, Xu Lei, Xu Yihui, Yang Yingsheng, and Yang Zhilin formed a Surrealist group called “The color Red: Travel” ( Hongse · lü ), which, according to Ding Fang in his essay, “Admonitions of the color Red: Travel,” was based on the members’ “similar painting styles.” 10 In this text, Ding Fang argues that humanity, shrouded in loneliness, had lost the ability to engage in dialogue with anything. History was an endless process of overlapping and regeneration, yet it was this very process that contained the promise of creative spirit, allowing the living to trace the trajectory of human creation. In their unique historical moment, during which “the confrontation with another powerful cultural form has induced an inevitable sense of cultural discontinuity that is both temporal and spatial,” artists, “long before having taken any action, have already a priori realized the futility of these actions within history itself.” Continuing in his Surrealist style, Ding Fang also expressed his belief in the redemptive power of Christianity.
The Surrealism of the 1980s was not confined to a few cities; it extended as far as Beijing with the work of artists like Liu Yan from the Northern Art Group (Beifang yishu qunti). Looking back on that period, Surrealism's success in China seems a result of its efficacy as a visual language for artists who were inspired by Western modernism and hoped to address through their work the ideological liberation and sensory awakening that characterized the age. It was against this backdrop that Chinese contemporary painting continued to evolve in the decades to come. Movements from the 1990s, like Cynical Realism (Wanshi Xianshizhuyi), Pop art and Gaudy art (Yansu yishu), as well as Image Painting (Yingxiang Huihua), which emerged in the 2000s, all stemmed from the modernist currents of the 1980s and the subsequent introduction of postmodern ideas. The increasing richness of visual references, the continuous liberation of artistic concepts, and the growing complexity of social life allowed a new generation of artists to freely choose their creative starting points, finding expressive forms that matched their unique contexts and aesthetic sensibilities. In the 1990s, free-spirited conceptions of painting gave rise to a widespread feeling of optimism, with artists like Deng Jianjin, Xin Haizhou, and Zhong Biao embracing the open-mindedness of the era to produce numerous Surrealist works. The new consumerism of the 2000s lent Surrealism a lighter tone, with collectives like TAMEN+ exemplifying this more playful approach in their Surrealist themes.
Despite repeated pronouncements of the Death of Painting, the forces shaping painting have grown ever more complex in the thirty years that have passed since the inception of the artistic New Wave of the 1980s. The challenge is not merely a response to technological shifts, it also concerns the increasingly turbulent society and world in which we live.
The theories of psychoanalysis inspired artists in the early twentieth century to explore the hidden depths of the mind. Today, in the age of globalization, the question of the unconscious also concerns identity and cultural belonging: globalization exposes the individual psyche to information and influences from different cultures, prompting an unconscious reassessment of formerly fixed traditions and national identities. The reality is that clearly defined social affiliations are dissolving. Globalization has intensified cross-cultural exchange and rendered obsolete the old dichotomies of past and present, East and West, and even the distinctions between nations. As a result, artists have begun to distance themselves from conventional classifications. The impact of globalization on consumption and taste has been swift, with markets becoming quickly accustomed to the cultural products provided by a global supply chain. Even as the realities of geopolitics disrupt the flow of capital and commodities, these very disruptions, to varying extents, stimulate or disturb the cultural sphere. The consumption patterns and aesthetic preferences formed at the level of the individual unconscious are likely—if not inevitably—subject to the influence of multicultural forces.
Globalization has shattered the monolithic values and moral orientations of the past. The generations who are subject to globalization find themselves unconsciously reassessing and revising their ethical and ideological standards, with the work of younger artists mirroring this clash of values as they attempt to cater to the fast-paced demands of this new era. Artists and art markets have had to adapt both psychologically and strategically: artists document the chaos of the age in sensory form, while collectors seek in these works a sense of identification in this new global context.
In this current iteration of globalization, the explosive and fragmented nature of information in the globalized era has led to information overload and disintegration. At the level of the unconscious, this produces anxiety, a psychological state that leads people to accept the incompleteness of visual information. The logical coherence and completeness of the past have been replaced with fragmented and disjointed images which, when directed by the obsessions of an individual artist, can congeal to form a virtual historical world or psychological image—a mental reality separate and apart from objective reality.
For the individual artist, navigating this sea of data to find a personally meaningful framework for understanding and interpreting the world is far more challenging than simply engaging in interdisciplinary practice. A subliminal sense of uncertainty and societal pressure affects the individual’s emotional state, self-worth, and expectations for the future. This often manifests as the unconscious acceptance and appropriation of new techniques and new imagery. On the other hand, this newly interconnected world has fostered an open-mindedness, inclusivity, and globalized mindset through cross-cultural exchange. It is possible that individuals may develop an instinctive sense of symbiosis that transcends cultural differences and fosters an experience of themselves as participants in the contemporary age. The artworks and feelings emerging from this consciousness contribute to the possibility of discovering stylistic affinities and mutually generative approaches in a globalized world.
The Surrealism of the early twentieth century and its contemporary counterpart differ fundamentally in both ethos and expression. Early Surrealism sought to escape reality by transcending the logic and rationality of the real world, exploring the emotional terrain of the depths of the unconscious as a refuge from the terrors and anxiety of war. Today’s Neo-Surrealism was born in an age of globalization and digitalization and mirrors the information overload, technological advances, and cultural hybridization that characterize our age. Digitally augmented or virtual realities and AI have reshaped the psyche of artists—and, by extension, the problems they seek to address through their art—which challenges and forces us to expand our very conception of reality and image production.
In the Surrealist paintings of the twentieth century, by artists like Dalí, Ernst, and Magritte, we encounter dreamscapes, hallucinations, and irrational psychological landscapes composed of images and symbols that cannot be found in the real world. Today’s neo-Surrealism, on the other hand, decomposes reality itself, leveraging digital art, virtual reality, and AI technologies to create new visual worlds.
Globalization has become synonymous with those nations that wield political, economic, military, and cultural power. Although these nations establish, maintain, strengthen, or transform the international order according to their own rules, this does not necessarily lead to a complete homogenization of culture. Instead, when these generalizing global influences collide and interact with the particularities of the local, they undergo a mutation that can give rise to cultural diversity rooted in regional histories and traditions. What was once termed historicity and local specificity now persists as a counterforce: the international dimension of globalization is often resisted or absorbed by the local—its language, customs, and traditional arts—which seek to protect and emphasize its cultural traits. Today, one often sees how the work of individual artists in this context serves to preserve cultural memory and local identity by modifying and reinterpreting the very traditions on which they are based.
Globalization has made it more difficult to affirm the uniqueness of art, and the advent of postmodernism has led us to abandon the notion of originality. Chinese artists are familiar with the concept of schema correction ( tushi xiuzheng ), a term introduced by artist Wang Guangyi from his study of the writings of Ernst Gombrich 11 . However, globalization continues to erode regional and civilizational distinctions, unless one is referring to concrete factors like geography, climate, and natural resources, which can still shape artistic styles, subject matter, and methods of expression. For instance, one can clearly observe general differences in the palettes employed by the French expressionists, or Fauves, and their German counterparts, demonstrating that artists’ use of color and brightness reflects their respective climatic and geographic conditions. Of course, this is not to deny the important role that values, belief systems, and social structures play in forming a culture’s artistic themes, symbolic meanings, and aesthetic preferences.
What all this is trying to say is that artists today, particularly those born in the 1980s and 1990s, are engaged in bold and open-minded experimentation with the language of painting. This, above all, has guided the selection of works for the Reality | Surreality exhibition.
注释
André Breton, “Manifesto of Surrealism,” in Manifestoes of Surrealism , trans. Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1969), p. 14.
Ibid, p. 26.
Ibid.
Ibid, p. 14.
Begun in 1978 under Deng Xiaoping, China saw a series of reforms and opening up that gradually reoriented China toward a market economy and increased engagement with the rest of the world.
The term "'85 New Wave" was coined by the critic Gao Minglu in 1986 to describe the proliferation of modernist art groups throughout China at the time.-Trans.
Art News of China (Zhongguo meishu bao), no. 23 (1985), republished in English in Lü Peng, A History of Chinese Art in the 20th and 21st Century , trans. Bruce Doar (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan/Springer Nature, 2025)
Scar art (Shanghen meishu) refers to a series of paintings inspired by Scar literature (Shanghen wenxue). Both movements were characterized by sentimental portrayals of the injustices suffered during the Cultural Revolution.–Trans.
Yang Zhilin, “Myriad Possibilities,” Art News of China ( Zhongguo meishu bao ), no. 23(1985): 4.
Ding Fang, “Admonitions of the color Red: Travel” ( Hongse· lü zhenyan ), in Currents of Thought in Art ( Meishu sichao ), no. 1, 1987, p14-15.
In his work on art history, Gombrich theorized that artists inherited and adapted preexisting schemata, modes of visual representation, in their attempts to depict the external world. Wang Guangyi drew on this idea to argue that artists’ work, by developing these schemata, could guide culture and society more broadly.–Trans.