Metarealism

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Metarealism is a direction in Russian poetry and art that was born in the 1970s to the 1980s. For the first time, this term was used by Mikhail Epshtein, who coined it in 1981 and made public in the Soviet magazine "Voprosy Literatury" in 1983; see below his "Theses on Metarealism and Conceptualism" from 1983 and the following years [1] Also: Third Wave: The New Russian Poetry. Ed. K. Johnson & S. M. Ashby. Preface by M. Epshtein, A. Wachtel, A. Parshchikov. University of Michigan Press, 1992 ISBN 0472064150, p. 10, 53, 184 [2], Tom Epstein's essay «Metarealism» in the anthology Crossing Centuries: The New Generations in Russian Poetry. Ed. High, John. NY: Talisman House Pub., 2000 ISBN 1883689902, ISBN 9781883689902, p. 87-89, and Marjorie Perloff "Russian Postmodernism: An Oxymoron?" in Postmodern Culture, Volume 3, # 2, January 1993 [3]. The term was independently coined by Olivia Mardwig during her undergraduate at the New School University in New York, and was later used in her work in literary theory, existentialism, and the Internet.

M. Epshtein insists that in its philosophic dimension metarealism is "metaphysical realism," while "stylistically" metarealism is "metaphorical" realism. (See the most detailed explanation and exposition of this term in Epshtein's articles "Theses on Metarealism and Conceptualism" [4], "A Catalogue of the New Poetries" (Russian version) [5] and in its English version [6] Thus, "meta" means both "through" and "beyond" the reality that we all can see; hence, "metarealism" is the realism of the hyperphysical nature of things. The main expression of its essence is given through a non-visual metaphor or, according to another Epshtein's term, a "metabola" (rather than hyperbole), that means "transfer" or "transition," opening many dimensions. [See part 3 in [7]. "Metabola" is different from the symbol or a "visual" metaphor, because it assumes the interosculation of realities. See: M.Epshtein. After the Future: the Paradoxes of Postmodernism & Contemporary Russian Culture. University of Massachusetts Press, 1995, 416 p. ISBN 0-87023-973-2, ISBN 0-87023-974-0, pp. 40-50. Metarealism has very little to do with surrealism, since it appeals to the superconscious and not to the subconscious, thus opening up a many-dimensional perception of the world.

1 What is metarealism?
2 Metarealism in the visual art
3 Externalk links
4 References

[edit] What is metarealism?

Metarealism is synonymous to metaconscience, which means beyond psychological consciousness, beyond a subjective psychological polarized view of reality. Metarealism seeks to depict the reality which exist beyond that psychological subjective perspective. Metarealism proposes not only to communicate further than the pictorial aspect of the perception of other dimension of reality, but also the essence of those dimensions and their relation to us as human beings. Metarealism then becomes a tool for the evolution of consciousness; just like in the old days artists painted sacred art to depict their vision of the reality they perceived, through their spiritual interpretation of other dimensions. Metarealism could be considered a sacred art, in that it also tries to depict, through a [metaconscious] perspective, the essence of reality as perceived by a metaconscious mind. Meta meaning, a holistic view of reality as perceived by a metaconscious mind, who sees reality as a whole rather than from a subjective personalized intellectually fragmented point of view. Metarealism is the materialization in pictorial form of the reality of other dimensions and their direct effect, and relation upon us. Metarealism tries to depict the relations between those dimensions of reality and how we psychologically interpret them trough our sub mental symbolism.

[edit] Metarealism in the visual art

According to Bernard De Montréal^[1], metarealism in visual arts is a involutionary art that expresses the dissimulated frustrations and struggle of the unconscious self in his search for real identity trough the euphoric, sub mental symbolism of the art form an avocation of the soul that has little in common with the interdimensional identity of the self.

Conscious or mental art is inspired from the higher self, and is a channel for the dictation of the conscious science of art, instead of being simply a lower form of self-expression, a cultural artifact of relative value.

The mental artist has little need for unconscious expression and directs his creative "expiration" toward the exploration of higher consciousness trough his art, rather than simply entertaining a fictitious role, in part to quell the domineering impulses of the soul, and in part for the recognition of his peers. Art in its astral form belongs to our kind of civilization. We still need its contention that there is more to reality than appears at first sight.