#surrealism

#surrealism

While working late in his Paris darkroom in 1921, the artist inadvertently placed some glass equipment on top of an unexposed sheet of photographic paper. Eventually, a phantom image formed, captivating his attention and spurring a new form he called rayographs. These pieces are among 160 works featured in a new show at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Man Ray: When Objects Dream will be on view from September 14 through February 1, 2026.

Building a wunderkammer is a surrealist exercise, in a way,

Sara Toby Moore's "The Mechanix," a self-described "science fiction-magical realism-human cartoon" show, takes place on "a normal day at a seaside amusement pier." The show includes interdimensional travel, anthropomorphic animals, the nature of free will, and an extended riff on "The Wizard of OZ." Through it all, one would be forgiven for occasionally asking what one thing has to do with the other. It's a question that never gets answered.

The show features painting, sculpture, photography, film and assemblage, tracing how artists working in cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and New York grappled with identity, sexuality, race and power in ways often overlooked in canonical art histories. Though the women's liberation movement didn't enter wider public consciousness until the early 1970s, Sixties Surreal showcases how women artists were creating an early feminist aesthetic and imagining new fields of possibility for themselves and their work.

The Lagos-based artist builds vivid, textured collages that feel like tiny, self-contained worlds, chronicling life through a visual journal.

"The word for snow will be the snow," says one, foreseeing a time when language itself will be scorched away by some cosmic fatality.

Evie Cavallo’s hero's journey begins with an impending eviction, reminiscent of pandemic upheavals, forcing her to confront her reality and identity amidst absurdity.

Have you ever seen the onearmed man running a bye to the keeper while 20,000 people leap and writhe and hold their heads and the one-armed man shouts in agony? This scene captures the surreal essence of a cricket match, where intense emotion exists even amidst a seemingly uneventful game.

Minami Kobayashi's figurative oil paintings and sculptures intertwine elements of intimacy and mystery, showcasing ordinary subjects with a surreal twist. Her work evokes a sense of the uncanny, engaging viewers with familiar yet disorienting imagery.

Suzanne Cesaire co-founded a journal called Tropiques and published influential essays on politics, literature, and art, inspired by her encounter with surrealist Andre Breton.

People are not very good at remembering things the way they really happened. If an experience is an article of clothing, then memory is the garment after it's been washed, not according to the instructions, over and over again: the colours fade, the size shrinks, the original, nostalgic scent has long since become the artificial orchid smell of fabric softener.

What Arshile Gorky and the other great immigrant observers of America had in common is that each pursued a passion in the modern sense, making art against the grain of commerce, while each underwent a passion in the mythical Greek sense-had some moment of struggle or pain that resolved in art, and, often, in the closest thing artists get to immortality: a place in the collective memory.

Open Window in its simplicity is a metaphor for looking inside. An informal invitation to walk up closer and peek in.

Salvador Dalí's logo redesign for Chupa Chups not only modernized the brand but also created a lasting visual identity that contributed to the brand's longevity.

Robert Lostutter's works explore the intersections of identity and transformation through surreal compositions that challenge traditional notions of the human form.

Durcan's poetry is oblique, exhilarating, unsettling and diverting all at once, never hesitating to take off into a realm of the surreal.

Echos of Reverie is a surrealist fashion editorial suspended between memory and dream, unfolding as a visual symphony of tension and introspection through metamorphosis.

Rheingold’s series explores the interplay of space, memory, and nostalgia, merging surrealism with abstraction to reflect femininity and cultural identity.