Abstract: For the surrealists, the city of Paris was not just a beautiful backdrop. Rich in unexpected encounters and juxtapositions, Paris was a site of exploration of the unconscious and the marvelous, the cradle of diverse and subversive experiences bearing the hope of a total revolution. Using marking visual examples and surrealist events, the conference will explore the relationship of this avant-garde movement to its city of birth, from André Breton's founding First manifesto (1924) to the beginning of the Second World War.

Iveta Slavkova is Assistant Professor at the American University of Paris. Her specialty is the avant-garde in the context of the two World Wars. She is the author of Réparer l'homme. La crise de l'humanisme et l'Homme nouveau des avant-gardes autour de la Grande Guerre (Presse du réel, 2020) and has coedited the EAM volume Crisis (De Gruyter, 2022). She is actually working on creators in the surrealist periphery in post-World War II Paris.