Books
How Surrealism’s Playful Aesthetic Was Deeply Political
The Surrealists’ insistence on irrationality was not a sport, but an attempt to engage in the political debates of their time.
Surrealism
Books
An English Translation of Belgian Surrealist Writing
Authors Paul Nougé, Paul Colinet, and Louis Scutenaire exhibited a staunch ethic of underground and elliptical obscurity.
Books
A New Collection of Surrealist Writings Focuses on Women Authors
The Milk Bowl of Feathers shows how women’s contributions to the Surrealist literary canon captivatingly crack the wall of Surrealist phallocracy.
Art
The Erotically Charged Technophilia of Cyberpunk Paintings
The late Cuban artist Agustin Fernandez created a gloomy, gritty body of works that imagine a hyper-sexed, electronic corporeality.
Books
Max Ernst’s Collage Novels Are Part Séance, Part Victorian Underworld, and All Uncanny
Ernst’s trailblazing “collage novels" employ the dreamlike conjunction — the fusion or juxtaposition of unlike elements whose collision makes perfect sense, in a free-associated way.
Art
Birding with Max Ernst
In the Museum of Modern Art's current Ernst retrospective, the artist's avian alter ego, Loplop, reveals a realer reality.
Books
The Idiosyncratic Writings of Leonora Carrington, a Reluctant Surrealist
Three books by Leonora Carrington, including her memoir of her time at an insane asylum, reveal the artist's specific vision of the world, which strayed from and defied Surrealism.
Art
Discovering Honoré Sharrer, an Eclipsed 20th-Century Surrealist Painter
A survey at the Columbus Museum of Art spotlights the remarkable work of the American artist, who was dogged in her convictions and a master of her medium.
Podcast
Egyptian Surrealism and the Quest to Define Modern Art in Egypt
Hyperallergic travels to Cairo to see one among a new wave of exhibitions that are reintroducing Egyptian modern art to a wider audience.
Books
The Persistence of Hunger: Dalí's Dissatisfying Cookbook
Salvador Dalí's 1973 cookbook, now reprinted by Taschen, doesn’t seem to know what Surrealist cuisine is.
Art
An Illustrated Guide to Guy Debord's 'The Society of the Spectacle'
The spectacle can be found on every screen that you look at. It is the advertisements plastered on the subway and the pop-up ads that appear in your browser.
Art
A Deep Dive into the Legacy of LA's Surrealists
LOS ANGELES — The official Made in L.A. show is at the Hammer Museum, but a felicitous counterpoint is currently at Richard Telles in the Fairfax district.