Through looking at the history of Surrealism and Magical realism, we find their roots lie in literature and then they appear in other forms of art. With the term, Magical realism, we directly remember Gabriel Garcia Marques, the famous writer of 100 years loneliness; but with the term, surrealism, we remember Salvador Dali, the spanish painter.
There are so many people who are not aware of Berton’s novels, the writer of surrealism principals, and so many people never think about the magic realism in visual arts, especially with photography, with which it has a close relationship, even more so than with literature. Is the connection between photography and surrealism, more than that with magical realism?
Apart from imaginary things, photography (Photo journalism and documentary ) can be close to the definitions of magic realism as the format and appearance because both roots lie in reality and logic. In other words, in magical realism, Audiences seems a real and documentary picture, but when they get through it, they discover strange connections in the picture, disparate elements and strange happenings which separate the picture from a normal documentary one. This strange happening could be suspension of the subject(s), the strange layout of normal elements, and also using photo montage techniques in photography.
There are also some similarities between surrealism and magical realism, which are the presence of a strange and surprising thing or action in the content. But in terms of loyalty to the reality they are separated from each other. A surrealist artists never feels any compulsion to be loyal to the rules of logic and reality and based on their Unconscious and free of any lows, they start making their artwork. The viewer in confronting with their artworks, immediately notice that there is no logical terms applied. But in Magic realism, putting on a cover of wise and logic, the artist, without any madness or Exaggerated emotions, shows the surprising and magical subjects or relationships or atmosphere in a normal and routine way.
For example In Karen Nair’s works (the Magic realism photographer) we witness the presense of animals, like Lion or fox, in the palace indoors. They can be there, but it’s odd for us to see these animal in a palace. We use to see them in Tv, in forests, or in the zoo. In a real time atmosphere we notice something strange is happening.
In my photographs I follow the rules of Magic realism. I always like to be loyal in the nature of photography which is reality. But I like to make my audiences surprised by putting something extra ordinary in the content. Hereby I present the woman in mist set, which I recently created in north of Iran.
