A New Show at the Dalí Museum Honors Surrealist Photographers

19 Dec A New Show at the Dalí Museum Honors Surrealist Photographers

Posted at 17:19h in Uncategorized by Vittoria Benzine

Source Credit: Content and images from Artnet News. Read the original article - https://news.artnet.com/art-world/dali-museum-surrealist-photography-show-florida-2590162

This year’s wide-ranging Surrealism celebrations have explored aspects from feminism to the African diaspora. Few, though, have highlighted how the advent of modern photography helped shape the movement.

Now, the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida has opened “The Subversive Eye: Surrealist and Experimental Photography from the David Raymond Collection,” a sprawling display of rare Surrealist photographs from the noted connoisseur’s collection.

A black and white mirror selfie featuring a Surrealist fish eye effect.

Man Ray, Self Portrait, Distortion (1928 or 30). Photo: Collection of David Raymond, © Man Ray 2015 Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris 2024.

“The Subversive Eye” offers over 100 works made by more than 50 artists hailing from Surrealism’s European core and beyond, such as Japanese photographer Osamu Shiihara, between the 1920s and 1940s.

A Surrealist black and white photograph depicting an extended white hand with black lines swirling around it, and a white abstract form within a black square atop its palm, all on a gray background.

Gygöry Kepes, Woman with Guitar (1939). Photo: Collection of David Raymond, © Estate of György Kepes (Imre Kepes and Juliet Kepes Stone).

The exhibition catalogue includes an essay by British art historian Dawn Ades, who also contributed to the catalogue for the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s groundbreaking 1986 Surrealist photography show “L’Amour Fou.” Inside, David Raymond himself recounts his decades-long engagement with the subject. Raymond famously donated his entire Surrealist photography collection to the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2007, only to start amassing another soon after.

A Surrealist black and white photograph depicting a woman with a short dark bob holding her head in her hands, with four echoes of the same images emanating in two columns above her head.

One might expect that Surrealism and photography should be opposites. One captures reality, it could be argued, while the other distorts it.

A black and white Surrealist self portrait taken in the surface of a curved, reflective metal object to give it a fish eye distortion.

But, as “The Subversive Eye” posits, handheld cameras and easier printing processes didn’t just provide Surrealist artists with new tools to alter their images through techniques like collage, solarization, and multiple exposures. In fact, photography itself captures a kind of parallel reality.

An image of a surrealist collage artwork featuring two blue statues surrounding a black and white picture of a crawling woman, all taking place outside.

“The Subversive Eye” explores this thesis through six thematic sections. “Transformations” demonstrates how Surrealists materially altered their photos. “Enigma of the Ordinary” then shows how they pictured mundane objects without amendments in order to highlight life’s absurdity.

A black and white photograph of two figures—one not wearing a shirt, the other not wearing pants—seen embracing.

Brassaï, Young Couple Wearing a Two-in-One Suit at the Bal de la Montagne Sainte-Geneviève (c. 1931). Photo: Collection of David Raymond,© Estate Brassaï –RMN-Grand Palais.

Next, “The Visible Woman” highlights how photography advanced the Surrealist aim to liberate desire. A range of female nudes appear here—some tender, some shocking, like Hungarian-French photographer Brassaï’s phosphorescent pants-down portrait Ass (1932). A cache of images by French artist Dora Maar (also Picasso’s lover and muse) temper such examples. Several of Maar’s works feature Nusch Éluard, the late wife of French poet Paul Éluard. The floral pattern from his mournful book Time Overflows covers an entire wall, lending this section a poignantly pretty atmosphere.

A black and white photograph depicting the outside of a vintage optical shop, replete with lots of eye imagery.

Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Parabola Optica (1931/38-39). Photo: Collection of David Raymond, © Archivo Manuel Álvarez Bravo, S.C..

“Poetic Objects” illustrates how Surrealist photographers imbued everyday objects with symbolic power through zooming or strategic cropping. “Automatic Sculpture” shows how photography allowed for an otherwise impossible form of sculpture through its ability to immortalize the momentary coalescence of objects, like a pile of metal fragments that Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo shot at an industrial site.

A black and white photograph depicting the shadows of a vertically-columned fence with lushly leaved vines growing over it.

Finally, “Urban Mysteries” offers imagery captured through the Surrealist exercise of Parisian night strolls.

“The Subversive Eye” also allows guests to test these techniques for themselves. A photo studio features wooden mannequins, geometric metal boxes, coiled metal springs, and moveable light sources so attendees can stage shoots using their smartphones.

A yellow-tinged surrealist photograph depicting a crowd of young male mannequins, some clothed and some not.

In this way, “The Subversive Eye” ensures that the tradition of Surrealist photography outlives this year’s celebrations.

“The Subversive Eye: Surrealist and Experimental Photography from the David Raymond Collection” is on view through May 4, 2025 at The Dalí Museum, 1 Dali Blvd, St. Petersburg, Florida.

Source Credit: Content and images from Artnet News. Read the original article - https://news.artnet.com/art-world/dali-museum-surrealist-photography-show-florida-2590162