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| Andre Breton by Man Ray, 1930 |
French writer & poet, 1896-1966. Participated in Dada. Later founded the Surrealist movement in 1924.
"In The Manifesto of Surrealism he issued in 1924, Breton defines surrealism as "pure psychic automatism". Automatism and the automatic: the photomaton was a readymade surrealist photography that removed the conscious, controlling mind of the photographer and took a stream of images too quickly for the sitter to compose her or himself in any but the most basic ways. The close range of the portraits and the flat background add to the sense of being surprised, taken aback, even abused, that we feel after sitting for a strip of passport pictures. The brutality that makes photomaton portraits uncomfortable makes them, for the surrealists, insightful." Jonathan Jones 2004
The photo booth came to Paris in 1928.
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| Francis Lewis by Andy Warhol, 1966 |
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| Andre Breton in Photo Booth |
