Loplop functions as both psychic amalgam and allegory of artistic production. In chapter two, I interpret Ernst's created persona Loplop as a totem as defined by Freud in Totem and Taboo. The first chapter focuses on Ernst's discovery and implementation of Freudian theory, and Cubist forms, as vehicles for a personal, political and artistic Oedipal rebellion. This study explores the contradictions and ambiguities of authorship in an art of the unconscious. Yet, Ernst's stated intention is to sacrifice his own conscious authority. By placing emphasis on Ernst's conscious appropriation of Freudian theory, I privilege the authorial intentions of the artist. This study illustrates how specific texts such as Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams provide Ernst with a structural model for the production of imagery and how Freud's unconscious mechanisms such as condensation and displacement equip him with an associative system for the generation of meaning. While Ernst's indebtedness to Freud's theory of the unconscious has achieved general recognition, the extent and nature of his involvement has been subject to continuing debate. This study analyses the adaptation of Freudian theory by the Surrealist artist Max Ernst (1891–1976) as a unifying paradigm that subtends the theoretical, technical, textual and visual components of his art. Samantha Beth Kavky, University of Pennsylvania Authoring the unconscious: Freudian structures in the art of Max Ernst
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