Higher Froggie nonsense
Somehow on September 15, 2001, The Guardian had the bad timing and/or the gall, and the space, to print a longish essay by John Sutherland on a then-upcoming show at the Tate Modern. It’s excellent, though, as was the headline, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak surrealist”. Some excerpts:
The word “surreal” is common linguistic property. You’ll find it even in the mouths of citizens who rarely go to art galleries and wouldn’t know a Tanguy from a tangerine, or Man Ray from a fish with a long spiked tail. It has become one of those all-purpose “intensifiers” for situations where other words fail. “Surreal,” one mutters, “bloody surreal”.
Useful as it may be, “surreal” is, on closer inspection, something of a misnomer. It comes from the French surréalisme, which translates into English as “super-realism”. Or, as the Spice Girls would have put it, something “reelly reelly reel”. See the rest.
