Women initially entered Surrealist circles as subjects or muses. The original Object sculpture doesn’t appear in the Schirn exhibit, but the show does features similarly thought-provoking works by Oppenheim, including Venus Primitiveand the painting Daphne and Apollo, which shows the eponymous river nymph and Greek god mid-metamorphosis. Object, according to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, exemplifies the Surrealists’ desire to bring “everyday things into unlikely alliance,” sparking meditation by placing the mundane in a new light. The catch? All of this dinnerware is covered in speckled brown fur. One of the better-known Surrealists highlighted in “Fantastic Women” is Meret Oppenheim, creator of Object, a sculpture of a teacup sitting on a saucer beside a spoon.

“The reasons for this are many, including the endless repetition of an outdated canon in spite of recent research-a problem which pertains to art history in general.” “To this day, the names and works of the huge number of important women artists throughout the world are missing in many reference guides and survey exhibitions on Surrealism,” writes curator Ingrid Pfeiffer in an accompanying publication quoted by artnet News’ Kate Brown. Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris / The Roger-Viollet Photoagency © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020 The women represented include the two who lend the show its title, Louise Bourgeois, Maya Deren, Ithell Colquhoun and Dora Maar, among others. Titled “ Fantastic Women: Surreal Worlds From Meret Oppenheim to Frida Kahlo,” the exhibition, on view at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, features some 260 works of art by 34 artists from 11 countries. Today, however, these female artists remain little-known, overshadowed by such individuals as Salvador Dalí, René Magritte and Max Ernst.Ī new survey of Surrealism’s influential female figures strives to help rectify this imbalance. Originally dominated by men, the Surrealist movement had expanded its membership to women by the 1930s. They were also designed to inspire creative processes, activate the subconscious and increase group cohesion-familiar aspirations for Paris’ Surrealist artists, who frequently met in cafés to discuss politics and psychoanalysis. But Exquisite Corpse and similar games were about more than just the end product. Participants repeat the process until the mismatched figure is complete.Īmong Surrealist circles convened between the 1920s and ‘60s, the result of this activity was often a strange, unpredictable character made up of disparate elements like a stack of eyes, constellations and a carafe of coffee. After the individual turns the page over to hide their work, they pass the paper along to the next contributor, who draws a torso. To begin the game of Exquisite Corpse, an artist draws a head on a folded piece of paper.

Surreal Objects by Ingrid Pfeiffer