Maria Rosa Lehmann

Dr. Maria Rosa Lehmann

Université du Québec à Montréal (january – august 2021)

postdoc project : La circulation transnationale du surréalisme : Alfred Pellan, Mimi Parent et Jean Benoît entre Montréal et Paris (1926–1969)

Vita

Maria Rosa Lehmann finished her dissertation on surrealist performance art at the Université Sorbonne-Panthéon in 2018. Since then, she held postdoctoral fellowships at Cornell University and the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). She was a research fellow of Labex CAP in Paris and an International Visiting Scholar at Brown University. She has participated in the organization of a number of exhibitions, such as Ceci n’est pas un musée at the Maeght Foundation (2014) and Une brève histoire de l’avenir at the Louvre Museum (2015). She has taught at the Lautech Institute in Germany and at the Université Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallée. She has participated in numerous international colloquiums. She publishes articles on Surrealism, Performance Art and Happenings, Eroticism and revolutionary practices, as well as the representation of the feminine in 20th century art. She recently finished a monography on Quebecois artist Alfred Pellan for the Art Canada Institute, which will be published in 2021. Her interest lies in the combination of research, exhibition practice and artistic expression.

Research focus

Using as an example the artistic interchanges between Quebec and France, this project studies how the surrealist movement, founded in France in 1925 by André Breton, transitions from one country to another and analyzes the different processes of transformation produced through these transitions. Attempting a reevaluation of surrealism’s international presence based on the concept of transnational circulation, it focuses on the oeuvre of three Quebecois artists—Alfred Pellan (1906–1988), Mimi Parent (1924–2005) and Jean Benoît (1922–2010)—and their contact with the Parisian surrealist group. Stressing porous boundaries, mobility, flows, entanglement, hybridity and métissage, the project’s objective is to 1) demonstrate the movement’s influence on Quebecois art, while also 2) tracing the so-called peripheral artists’ impact on “French” surrealism.

Contact

mrl

Dr. Maria Rosa Lehmann