Rene Magritte, La Grande Famille, 1963
How one's world can turn on first encountering a teacup covered in fur-
Meret Oppenheim, Object, 1936
For many of the women of In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States, now open at LACMA, the symbolic, self-referential vocabulary of surrealism, together with the feeling of "freedom" the artists found in North America, which had no fixed, male-dominated, European surrealist tradition, fostered the possibility of authentic artistic expression.
Not everything thrills me...
An appropriate title because this is what I feel when I see a lot of her work (do I get to keep my feminist credentials?) Seriously, could someone please explain this woman to me? Yes I see the phallus, the tribal, the black and white. Is that it?
But overall In Wonderland is full of great work - personal, intense, beautifully executed and powerful.
And while Freud, with his obsession for dream analysis, and the work of the earlier male surrealists was perhaps an inevitable influence on these women, in turn the influence of these surrealist women on later feminist art is undeniable. And thrilling. I had been taught that the feminist art movement of the late 60s and 70s came straight out of political upheaval and rested squarely on the competent shoulders of Georgia O'Keefe but in seeing In Wonderland, by seeing these artists collected together, the impact of female surrealists on their feminist daughters became clear, a new link in the history.
Helen Lundberg, self portrait with landscape, 1944
47 women are represented in the fantastic exhibition space, itself a surrealist reference, with its rope demarcations that are not really demarcations. The exhibit is laid out roughly by theme; dual figures, alchemical or scientific imagery, animal avatar, and sometimes by medium; photography, sculpture. You will know some of the artists - Freda Kahlo, Dorothea Tanning, Remedios Varo, Louise Bourgeois, and some will probably be new to you.
For Kahlo fans, directly viewing some of her best known work, which I, at least, had never seen other than in reproduction, is a thrill-
Though she famously said, "They thought I was a surrealist but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality" her work shines beautifully here.
The exhibit is large, 175 works, and deeply engaging. I had an hour to spend and it wasn't nearly enough (I'll be going back.) Click through the links above for more information on some of the featured artists and plan to spend a wonderful afternoon In Wonderland.
In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and North America is at the LosAngeles County Museum of Art through May 6th. Recommended for those 13 and up.
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