Avant-garde theory in the 1960s : [with an introduction by Matthew Rampley]

Vratislav Effenberger is remembered primarily as the heir to Karel Teige from the 1950s and, as such, the leading representative of Surrealism in post-war Czechoslovakia. The editor of Teige's collected writings, as well as of anthologies of Surrealist texts, he wrote numerous articles on contemporary art and culture, with a focus on the legacy of relevance of Surrealism in the 1950s and 1960s. This text consists of a translation of a chapter from his only book-length theoretical study, Reality and the Poetic (1969), in which he offered an interpretation of the history of the avant-garde as well as a theoretical elaboration of avant-garde aesthetics. The translated chapter is prefaced with an introduction that provides a historical and intellectual background to Effenberger's work, including discussion of his marginalization by the socialist authorities as well as emphasis on key concepts in his work.