Didier Ottinger's 'Surréalisme et mythologie moderne' Rethinks Surrealism's Mythic Core

In 'Surréalisme et mythologie moderne', published by Éditions Gallimard, Didier Ottinger argues that surrealism can only be understood through its relationship with myth. He traces this mythic dimension from De Chirico's metaphysical painting through the movement's early automatism and urban drift, then contends it was suppressed in the 1930s by Marxist engagement. The journal Minotaure and dissident 'Bataillean' figures later reoriented surrealism by providing conceptual tools for redefining political paradigms. Exile proved decisive: surrealism enabled American painters like Barnett Newman to achieve 'pure plastic language' via a mythologizing path. This genealogy of abstraction as ascent from depths reverses Clement Greenberg's narrative, overcoming the formalist/figurative opposition and reassessing surrealism's 20th-century role. Ottinger does not aim to surrealize art history; rather, surrealism's paradoxical historical relevance stems from its anhistoricity—a mythic, cyclical temporality. He suggests surrealism should be seen not as a movement between isms but as a recurrent wave reviving the forces of phusis, proliferating chimeras and free associations of the imaginary.