When: Wed., Nov. 20, 12:30-1:30 p.m. 2019 Price: free with museum admission
Even though Andre Breton wrote The Surrealist Manifesto in 1924, City Lights Booksellers & Publishers — in conjunction with BAMPFA, Alley Cat Books, UC Berkeley, and several others — are marking 1919 as the birth of Surrealism, noting seminal works created that year. They are celebrating Surrealism’s centennial with a series of talks called Inside The Magnetic Fields: Surrealism at 100. One of the highlights of the series is BAMPFA Director Emeritus Jacquelynn Baas presenting her new book Marcel Duchamp and the Art of Life. Offering a close reading of the artist’s work, Baas posits that Duchamp’s vision “was grounded in a western interpretation of Asian mind training and body energetics designed to transform erotic energy into mental and spiritual liberation.”