Eros

doi:10.1017/9781009177771.015

Chapter 14 - Eros

After Surrealism and Before the Revolution (1945–1967)

from Part IV - Aesthetics and Innovation

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 January 2023

Sarah Ann Wells

Edited by

Amanda Holmes and

Par Kumaraswami

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Amanda Holmes: Affiliation:
McGill University, Montréal
Par Kumaraswami: Affiliation:
University of Reading

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Summary

The most provocative legacy of surrealism in Latin America in the period following World War II can arguably be found in the work of women artists and writers. The postwar feminine surrealisms examined in this chapter responded to the encroachment of capitalism in daily life and the gradual, if incomplete, loosening of normative categories of sex and gender. Taking up historical surrealism’s focus on eros as an incomplete promise, they expanded into alternative configurations of sex, desire, and family life, while simultaneously emphasizing persistent, if updated, forms of gendered violence. This chapter analyzes experimental writers and visual artists from Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s – Grete Stern, Maria Martins, Marosa Di Giorgio, and Alejandra Pizarnik. It concludes by noting the legacies of their erotic surrealisms for contemporary art and literature.

Keywords

gender sexuality modernism visual art eroticism poetry

Type: Chapter
Information: Latin American Literature in Transition 1930–1980 , pp. 229 - 244

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009177771.015 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2022

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