Title
Surrealism and the American West: André Breton’s “Hopi Notebook”
Document Type
Open Educational Resource
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Department/Program
Modern Languages & Literatures
Publication Date
4-3-2023
Role
Viktor Wynd (Interviewer)
Kate Conley (Interviewee)
Publisher
Kate Conley, Viktor Wynd Museum
City
London
Abstract
André Breton’s visit to the Hopi villages of Arizona in 1945 had an impact on his view of the world and of the objects he collected. His response to what he witnessed in the month when the United States dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was reflected in the notebook he kept on his trip, known as the “Hopi Notebook,” and in the poem he began writing that month, “Ode to Charles Fourier.” His belief in the liveliness of repurposed things, haunted by their former lives, was particularly pertinent to the Hopi katsinam he collected on his trip to the American West and subsequently kept close to him in his apartments in New York and Paris. These things had an impact on surrealist thought through the memories they stirred in him of the dances he had witnessed on the Hopi Reservation that he recorded in the “Notebook” and the “Ode.” Particularly when considered in light of the visit by Aby Warburg, another European intellectual, to the same villages 50 years earlier, Breton’s “Hopi Notebook” adds a missing piece to our understanding of the premier avant-garde movement of the twentieth century through the way Breton continued his effort to capture his evolving understanding of what it means to be human.
Publication Statement
This work is made available for educational and personal use only. Copyright is credited to the authors. Any other uses should be directed to the publisher.
Recommended Citation
Conley, Kate and Wynd, Viktor, "Surrealism and the American West: André Breton’s “Hopi Notebook”" (2023). Arts & Sciences Open Educational Resources. 6.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/asoer/6
