Grabräuber

The usual pack of grave-robbers expects the sale to top $40 million, but the pathetic bankruptcy of this enterprise should be obvious to those who know thta surrealism can no more be bought and sold than can love, imagination, or freedom. The breaking-up of Breton’s collection is deplorable on all counts, and indeed, a tragedy, but first and foremost it is a shameful and hostile act on the part of the French authorities. Much more is involved than a blow to researchers: The sale is, in effect, a cowardly and criminal attempt to obliterate crucial and irreplaceable evidence of an exemplary subversive, liberating, and revolutionary current in history and culture, not only in France but throughout the world. The bewildered, reactionary, jingoistic cabal that currently dominates French political life has nothing but fear and loathing for the memory and living presence of André Breton—who, by the way, was never even close to being wealthy himself. Were this a collection devoted to Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, or any other mere art or literary movement, the French state would doubtless intervene at once and seize it in its entirety as a national treasure. Breton, however, remains the embodiment of the most scandalously anti-authoritarian virtues: insubordination, revolt, revolution, and freedom now! A vigorous opponent of French colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, white supremacy and all forms of exploitation and racism, the author of the Surrealist Manifestoes is a symbolic “Enemy of the State” second to none. / Surrealism is not for sale, Januar 2003