DELC Research Seminar Series: Patricia Allmer In brief Date - 22 May 2025Venue - Usha Kasera Lecture Theatre, Old CollegeSpeaker - Professor Patricia Allmer (Edinburgh College of Art)Title - ZERRBILDER: Strategies of the Traumatic Surreal About the eventby Patricia AllmerIn her acceptance speech for the 1974 Kunstpreis der Stadt Basel, Swiss artist Meret Oppenheim (1913-85), long connected to Surrealism, described women as “Zerrbild dessen, was sie sein könnten” (“distortions of what they could be”). 'Zerrbilder', distorted pictures, recur in Surrealist art.Objects, human and animal figures, landscapes and seascapes are flattened, stretched, twisted, compressed, become transparent, merge with each other in unsettling hybrids, challenging ‘natural’ distinctions. Bizarre juxtapositions result from surrealist experiments with chance and randomness, distorting conventional relations between things and their perception and representation. Surrealist distortions also include the male surrealists’ disfigurements of the female figure, and their objectification of the woman artist.In response to these tendencies, Germanophone women artists, exemplifying what I have termed 'The Traumatic Surreal', have exploited the anamorphic effects of Zerrbilder to register and respond to specific and deeply traumatic historical events and situations which have distorted women’s cultural and political lives in significant and lasting ways across three post-war generations.This talk will explore some of the ways in which these aesthetic responses become a potent aesthetic and political strategy of these artists.About the speakerPatricia Allmer is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Edinburgh. Her many books, exhibitions, and essays have transformed the study of modern and contemporary women artists and surrealism, starting in 2009 with her curation of the award-winning 'Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism' at Manchester Art Gallery, the first major exhibition on this topic.She was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize (2010), a Leverhulme Fellowship (2022), and an Association for Art History Fellowship (2023). Her books include 'Lee Miller: Photography, Surrealism, and Beyond' (2016) and 'The Traumatic Surreal' (2022), hailed in its Woman’s Art Journal review as “groundbreaking” and the basis of her co-curated 2024-25 Henry Moore Institute exhibition 'The Traumatic Surreal'.Professor Allmer is also a major international scholar of René Magritte, publishing three books on the artist, and delivering the prestigious 2017-18 International Émile Bernheim Programme lectures in Brussels on his work. Her most recent book is 'Passage works: Ruth Beckermann’s art' (2025).How to attendThis event is free to attend and open to all. No registration is required - just come along! There will be a Q&A after the talk, and refreshments will be provided.About the seminar seriesThe DELC Research Seminar Series (DRSS) encourages collaboration and coproduction between staff and students across European Languages and Cultures and beyond.Entry is free and everyone is welcome. No registration is necessary.Are you interested in studying European Languages and Cultures?Our interdisciplinary environment brings together specialists in nine European languages, and the many cultures worldwide in which they're spoken, with experts in film, literature, theatre, translation and intermediality. Working with colleagues elsewhere in LLC, and across the wider University, we are able to support research which crosses boundaries between disciplines and/or languages. Find out more about studying with us Tags European Languages and Cultures German May 22 2025 16.15 - 17.15 DELC Research Seminar Series: Patricia Allmer An in-person seminar from Professor Patricia Allmer (Edinburgh College of Art) juxtaposing the use of 'Zerrbilder', distorted pictures, in the work of Germanophone female artists, against the similarly distorted and traumatic lives of women across three post-war generations. Usha Kasera Lecture Theatre Old College University of Edinburgh EH8 9YL Find the venue: Old College
DELC Research Seminar Series: Patricia Allmer In brief Date - 22 May 2025Venue - Usha Kasera Lecture Theatre, Old CollegeSpeaker - Professor Patricia Allmer (Edinburgh College of Art)Title - ZERRBILDER: Strategies of the Traumatic Surreal About the eventby Patricia AllmerIn her acceptance speech for the 1974 Kunstpreis der Stadt Basel, Swiss artist Meret Oppenheim (1913-85), long connected to Surrealism, described women as “Zerrbild dessen, was sie sein könnten” (“distortions of what they could be”). 'Zerrbilder', distorted pictures, recur in Surrealist art.Objects, human and animal figures, landscapes and seascapes are flattened, stretched, twisted, compressed, become transparent, merge with each other in unsettling hybrids, challenging ‘natural’ distinctions. Bizarre juxtapositions result from surrealist experiments with chance and randomness, distorting conventional relations between things and their perception and representation. Surrealist distortions also include the male surrealists’ disfigurements of the female figure, and their objectification of the woman artist.In response to these tendencies, Germanophone women artists, exemplifying what I have termed 'The Traumatic Surreal', have exploited the anamorphic effects of Zerrbilder to register and respond to specific and deeply traumatic historical events and situations which have distorted women’s cultural and political lives in significant and lasting ways across three post-war generations.This talk will explore some of the ways in which these aesthetic responses become a potent aesthetic and political strategy of these artists.About the speakerPatricia Allmer is Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Edinburgh. Her many books, exhibitions, and essays have transformed the study of modern and contemporary women artists and surrealism, starting in 2009 with her curation of the award-winning 'Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism' at Manchester Art Gallery, the first major exhibition on this topic.She was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize (2010), a Leverhulme Fellowship (2022), and an Association for Art History Fellowship (2023). Her books include 'Lee Miller: Photography, Surrealism, and Beyond' (2016) and 'The Traumatic Surreal' (2022), hailed in its Woman’s Art Journal review as “groundbreaking” and the basis of her co-curated 2024-25 Henry Moore Institute exhibition 'The Traumatic Surreal'.Professor Allmer is also a major international scholar of René Magritte, publishing three books on the artist, and delivering the prestigious 2017-18 International Émile Bernheim Programme lectures in Brussels on his work. Her most recent book is 'Passage works: Ruth Beckermann’s art' (2025).How to attendThis event is free to attend and open to all. No registration is required - just come along! There will be a Q&A after the talk, and refreshments will be provided.About the seminar seriesThe DELC Research Seminar Series (DRSS) encourages collaboration and coproduction between staff and students across European Languages and Cultures and beyond.Entry is free and everyone is welcome. No registration is necessary.Are you interested in studying European Languages and Cultures?Our interdisciplinary environment brings together specialists in nine European languages, and the many cultures worldwide in which they're spoken, with experts in film, literature, theatre, translation and intermediality. Working with colleagues elsewhere in LLC, and across the wider University, we are able to support research which crosses boundaries between disciplines and/or languages. Find out more about studying with us Tags European Languages and Cultures German May 22 2025 16.15 - 17.15 DELC Research Seminar Series: Patricia Allmer An in-person seminar from Professor Patricia Allmer (Edinburgh College of Art) juxtaposing the use of 'Zerrbilder', distorted pictures, in the work of Germanophone female artists, against the similarly distorted and traumatic lives of women across three post-war generations. Usha Kasera Lecture Theatre Old College University of Edinburgh EH8 9YL Find the venue: Old College
May 22 2025 16.15 - 17.15 DELC Research Seminar Series: Patricia Allmer An in-person seminar from Professor Patricia Allmer (Edinburgh College of Art) juxtaposing the use of 'Zerrbilder', distorted pictures, in the work of Germanophone female artists, against the similarly distorted and traumatic lives of women across three post-war generations.
