According to Andre Breton’s 1929 “Surrealist Map of the World,” the USA is missing. Alaska is really big; however, fortunate for them, not an official US state yet. Breton’s calculated slight, originating from a desire to skew cultural superiority in the midst of budding US imperialism, might parallel omissions mapped out by other surrealists of the time—namely the mapping of female bodies minus the normally attached heads, arms, legs and other practical appendages. Coincidentally,these practical appendages are very useful in making art—especially the head, the fingers andthe oppositional thumbs.

As luck would have it, Breton’s snub of Chicago, represented by a nameless single speck on a nameless dotted line, was revised during the infamous 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago by the creation of Gallery Bugs Bunny. The surreal trickster Bugs teaches us strategies on how to poke holes in the spectacle of the entertainment-arts industries—bunny holes for undermining corporate lies of the same-old, same-old chunks of cultural clay and canvas. Fortunately, for those of us who missed Gallery Bugs Bunny in 1968, a fortieth anniversary of Gallery Bugs Bunny is being planned by The Chicago Surrealist Group for this spring—the exact dates and location have not as yet been determined.

In the meantime, cultural map-reading strategies might evoke a more rebellious spirit of adventure by placing over the culture map a clear plastic overlay, printed with the art explorer’s favorite constellation. Say, Corona Borealis—The Crown of Ariadne,  connected by strings to the rebellious weaver Arachne—whose threads can be used to find your way through the cultural labyrinths and, hopefully, safely back home.

From a common starting point of a gallery or designated “cultural” site, the overlay would identify a trail of points-of-interest for subsequent queries: What surprising pieces of art (or contemporary cultural artifacts) may appear at these star-directed yet unadvertised locations? Look closer. Connect your own dots! Who decides which art pieces or cultural artifacts are really worthwhile, anyway? Take notes, take pictures and compare your data with fellow art travelers. Warning: Such Surrealist Games are not recommended for the dreary status-climber, the lazy hipster-conformist, the headless, the thumbless or the faint of heart.

by Renay Kerkman