Surrealism and magic : enchanted modernity / exhibiton and catalog by Grazina Subelyte and Daniel Zamani ; edited by Vivien Greene, Michael Philipp, Grazina Subelyte, Karole P. B. Vail, Ortrud Westheider, Daniel Zamani ; with contributions by Susan Aberth, Will Atkin, Helen Bremm, Victoria Ferentinou, Alyce Mahon, Kristoffer Noheden, Gavin Parkinson, Grazina Subelyte, Daniel Zamani.
Catalog of an exhibition held at Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, from April 9-September 26, 2022; and Museum Barberini, Potsdam, October 22, 2022-January 29, 2023. "The exhibition Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity (October 22, 2022 - January 29, 2023) is the first large-scale international loan exhibition to focus on the Surrealists' interest in magic and myth. With his Manifesto of Surrealism, published in October 1924, the French writer Andre Breton founded a literary and artistic movement that soon became the leading international avant-garde. At the center of the Surrealist enterprise lay a reorientation towards the world of the night-dream, the unconscious and the irrational. Numerous artists, who moved in the intellectual orbit of the movement, also immersed themselves in the imaginative world of magic. In their works, they frequently drew on occult symbolism and cultivated the traditional image of the artist's persona as a magician, seer, and alchemist. The exhibition Surrealism and Magic. Enchanted Modernity is the first large-scale international loan exhibition to focus on the Surrealists' interest in magic, myth, and the occult. Chronologically, it ranges from the "metaphysical painting" of Giorgio de Chirico around 1915, through Max Ernst's iconic painting Attirement of the Bride (1940), to the occult imagery that underpinned the late works of Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. Victor Brauner: The Surrealist, 1947, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice. Victor Brauner: The Surrealist, 1947, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice Overall, the show includes some 90 works by more than 20 artists, among them Victor Brauner, Leonora Carrington, Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dali, Paul Delvaux, Max Ernst, Leonor Fini, Roberto Matta, Roland Penrose, Kay Sage, Kurt Seligmann, Yves Tanguy, Dorothea Tanning, and Remedios Varo. Among the more than 40 international lenders are the Art Institute of Chicago, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Menil Collection in Houston, the Galleria Nazionale in Rome, the Museo nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Musees royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Brussels as well as the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. An exhibition of the Museum Barberini, Potsdam, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, curated by Daniel Zamani (Potsdam) and Grazina Subelyte (Venice). In Venice, the exhibition will be on view from April 9 to September 26, 2022. The exhibition will be accompanied by 240-page catalog (Prestel, 2022), featuring essays by Susan Aberth, Will Atkin, Victoria Ferentinou, Alyce Mahon, Kristoffer Noheden, Gavin Parkinson, Grazina Subelyte, and Daniel Zamani." -- Museum Barberini website. Includes bibliographical references (pages 260-267).
Contents:
Preface -- Acknowledgments -- Magical beginnings: Andre Breton and the "occultation of surrealism" / Daniel Zamani -- Modern minotaurs: surrealism, myth, and magic in the 1930s / Kristoffer Noheden -- Metaphors of change: surrealism, magic, and World War II / Grazina Subelyte -- Of kings and queens: alchemical desire and the surrealist imagination / Alyce Mahon -- Modern enchantress: Leonora Carrington, surrealism, and magic / Susan Aberth -- Toward l'art magique: surrealism and magic in the 1950s / Gavin Parkinson -- Catalog of works -- Hidden dimensions: in search of the surreal / Daniel Zamani -- Endless metamorphosis: surrealism and alchemy / Will Atkin -- Agents of change: women as magical beings / Victoria Ferentinou -- The alchemy of painting: Kurt Seligmann / Grazina Subelyte -- Sisters of the moon: Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo / Victoria Ferentinou -- Appendix.
Summary:
"The exhibition Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity (October 22, 2022 - January 29, 2023) is the first large-scale international loan exhibition to focus on the Surrealists' interest in magic and myth. With his Manifesto of Surrealism, published in October 1924, the French writer Andre Breton founded a literary and artistic movement that soon became the leading international avant-garde. At the center of the Surrealist enterprise lay a reorientation towards the world of the night-dream, the unconscious and the irrational. Numerous artists, who moved in the intellectual orbit of the movement, also immersed themselves in the imaginative world of magic. In their works, they frequently drew on occult symbolism and cultivated the traditional image of the artist's persona as a magician, seer, and alchemist. The exhibition Surrealism and Magic. Enchanted Modernity is the first large-scale international loan exhibition to focus on the Surrealists' interest in magic, myth, and the occult. Chronologically, it ranges from the "metaphysical painting" of Giorgio de Chirico around 1915, through Max Ernst's iconic painting Attirement of the Bride (1940), to the occult imagery that underpinned the late works of Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. Overall, the show includes some 90 works by more than 20 artists, among them Victor Brauner, Leonora Carrington, Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dali, Paul Delvaux, Max Ernst, Leonor Fini, Roberto Matta, Roland Penrose, Kay Sage, Kurt Seligmann, Yves Tanguy, Dorothea Tanning, and Remedios Varo. Among the more than 40 international lenders are the Art Institute of Chicago, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the Menil Collection in Houston, the Galleria Nazionale in Rome, the Museo nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Musees royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Brussels as well as the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. -- Museum Barberini website.
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