“I once more take the opportunity to express here my admiration and gratitude for André Breton and the other surrealists who, after Sigmund Freud and the psychoanalysts, have shed, in our age, the most illuminating light on the thick darkness that surrounds us. And so a new world opened up before me, like a sudden bursting into bloom of inexhaustible miracles, a world around me and in me that was unending and immeasurable, a truly magic world to which surrealism has given us once and for all the right keys.” (A. Embiricos, “Letter to Vivika” in Amour Amour, København & Los Angeles: Green Integer, 2003, p. 20 )
Our presenter, Dr. Alexander Baron-Raiffe, will describe the major challenges and satisfactions of translating the work of Andreas Embiricos (1901-1975), a unique figure in the history of both Psychoanalysis and Surrealism in Greece. Embiricos’ work as a psychoanalyst was inseparable from his artistic practice. Embiricos was personally close to André Breton, the founder of the Surrealist group, whose belief he shared: that Surrealism had the potential to effect revolutionary change on both the individual and the societal levels by bringing unconscious material to the surface through contact with the surrealist work of art. Embiricos brought the Surrealist faith to his clinical work through his vision of psychoanalysis as a revolutionary practice. He believed that Freudian psychoanalysts could serve the role of “revolutionary trainer” by liberating repressed libido on the level of the individual patient; at scale, this could affect transformational change at the societal level.
Join us for Dr. Baron-Raiffe’s reading of Embiricos’ poetry and his writings on psychoanalysis, and a discussion of their clinical resonance in our current socio-political climate.
Alexander Baron-Raiffe, PhD, LP, is a psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. He is an advanced candidate at the Contemporary Freudian Society. He holds a doctorate in French Literature from Princeton University where he was also a fellow of the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies. He has held teaching positions at Princeton University, Fordham University, Sarah Lawrence College, and The New School.
Frances V. Dillon, MSW and Eric Dammann, PhD, Co-Directors, Artist Study Group
