Raymond teaches twentieth century art history at VUW. He completed his doctorate in 1999 on the role of painting in the French surrealist movement, and then taught art history in the United States from 2001 to 2004.
Raymond’s research interests extend from the culture and politics of surrealism and the French avant-garde movements to the history of modernism and its discontents. A central focus of his current research is thinking through the relation between creative endeavour, politics and the political.
He is currently working on a study of the Breton-Bataille polemic and the culture of surrealism.
Current research projects
Raymonds’s research interests are:
The culture and politics of surrealism.
French avant-garde movements.
The history of modernism and its discontents.
The Breton-Bataille polemic and the culture of surrealism.
Selected publications
“Community at Play: Surrealism, Community, Utopia,” in Surrealism: Key Concepts, edited by Michael Richardson and Krzysztof Fijalkowski (London: Routledge, 2016), 107-119.
“Surrealism and the Question of Politics, 1925–1939,” in A Companion to Dada and Surrealism, edited by David Hopkins (Cambridge: Wiley-Blackwell, 2016), 110-130.
“Convulsive Beauty: Surrealism as Aesthetic Revolution,” in Aesthetic Revolutions and Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde Movements, edited by Aleš Erjavec (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015), 80-112.
“From Unitary Urbanism to the Society of the Spectacle: The Situationist Aesthetic Revolution,” in Aesthetic Revolutions and Twentieth-Century Avant-Garde Movements, edited by Aleš Erjavec (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015), 178-214.
Raymond Spiteri and Donald LaCoss (eds), Surrealism, Politics and Culture (Aldershot and Burlington VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2003).- collection of essays discussing the relation between culture and politics in surrealism.
" Envisioning Surrealism in Histoire de l’œil and La femme 100 têtes,” Art Journal, vol. 63, no. 4 (Winter 2004), 4-18.- discusses the role of the eye in two examples of surrealism by Georges Bataille and Max Ernst.
" Surrealism and the Irrational Embellishment of Paris,” in Surrealism and Architecture, edited by Thomas Mical (New York, Routledge, 2005), 191–208.
Selected Presentations
“Dreams Are Not Enough: Surrealism in the Graves-Riding Circle,” On an Island: Len Lye, Robert Graves and Laura Riding, Auckland, 9 June 2017.
“Formalism and its Discontents: The Case of Cahiers d’Art and Surrealism in 1928,” 104th Annual Conference of the College Art Association, Washington, DC, 3-6 February 2016.
“The Communism of Genius: Modernism, the Surrealist Revolution, and Equality,” Image Body Space: Art Association of Australia and New Zealand 2015 Conference, Brisbane, 24-25 November 2015
