Surrealist images weaponize commodity contradictions against themselves

Evidence

The Surrealist image is thus a convulsive effort to split open the commodity forms of the objective universe by striking them against each other with immense force: “Et surtout, beau comme la rencontre fortuite sur une table de dissection d’une machine à coudre et d’un parapluie!” Reverdy’s definition of the image as the forcible and arbitrary interconnection of two realities as distant and unrelated as possible, which the Surrealists adopt for themselves, is remarkably faithful to Schiller’s notion that freedom emerges from the neutralization of oppressive impulses; except that now the commodity impulse is turned back upon itself, its own inner contradictions transformed into the motor of its self-destruction. — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 198

Categorization

• XREF: Reads like the Benjaminian figure of dialectical shock — the image as a constellation that explodes the commodity. Benjamin’s Passagenwerk is the obvious parallel. — connects to: Art expresses utopian harmony negatively by embodying contradictions unresolved — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 549; Art works expose social contradictions through their internal formal tensions — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 19; A successful artwork embodies contradictions without falsely resolving them — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays…, 51 (+2 more)
• ADDENDUM: The convulsive image splitting open commodity forms parallels how trees as infrastructure split the commodity logic of the built environment in ‘Grafting & Growth: On Trees as Infrastructure’.

Broader Connections

• Art resolves real social contradictions through purely formal means #contradicts (0.82) — Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 1774
• Art works expose social contradictions through their internal formal tensions #corroborates (0.80) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 19
• A successful artwork embodies contradictions without falsely resolving them #corroborates (0.80) — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 51
• Art expresses utopian harmony negatively by embodying contradictions unresolved #corroborates (0.78) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 549