Surrealistic Creatures

Artists of the exhibition: Hans Arp, Hans Bellmer, Jean Benoît, Victor Brauner, André Breton, Emmy Bridgwater, Max Bucaille, Luis Buñuel, Leonora Carrington, Giorgio de Chirico, Paul Colinet, Salvador Dalí, Paul Delvaux, Óscar Domínguez, Marcel Duchamp, Charles Duits, Nusch Éluard, Paul Éluard, Max Ernst, Léonor Fini, Wilhelm Freddie, Alberto Giacometti, Camille Goemans, Jane Graverol, Maurice Henry, Adolf Hoffmeister, Georges Hugnet, Valentine Hugo, Radovan Ivšić, Edgar Jené, Humphrey Jennings, Greta Knutson, Jiří Kolář, Ivo Medek Kopaninský, Félix Labisse, Wifredo Lam, Jacqueline Lamba, Marcel Lefrancq, Dora Maar, Conroy Maddox, René Magritte, Joyce Mansour, Marcel Mariën, André Masson, Roberto Matta Echaurren, Joan Miró, Milan Nápravník, Richard Oelze, Meret Oppenheim, Wolfgang Paalen, Mimi Parent, Roland Penrose, Benjamin Péret, Pablo Picasso, Gisèle Prassinos, Raymond Queneau, Alice Rahon, Man Ray, Edith Rimmington, Pierre Roy, Georges Sadoul, Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern, Kurt Seligmann, Jindřich Štyrský, Max Walter Svanberg, Jan Švankmajer, Yves Tanguy, Dorothea Tanning, Claude Tarnaud, Karel Teige, Toyen, Raoul Ubac, Remedios Varo, Unica Zürn

The comprehensive exhibition Surrealistic Creatures is devoted to the world of animals and fantastical beings. We invite you to visit this unusual zoo at the Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR, Germany.

Whether it is the bird in the case of Max Ernst, the dog for Dorothea Tanning or the sphinx of Léonor Fini—the bestiary, which dominates the image worlds of Surrealism, has never been dealt with in an exhibition with such scope and diversity before. And this despite the fact that numerous artists have created their own corresponding private phantoms. Sometimes these even turned out to be alter egos. They populate the sprawling fauna of surreal fantasy alongside hybrid creatures such as Pablo Picasso’s minotaur or René Magritte’s mermaid. At times, some of the human-animal hybrids are depicted in the process of transformation, with single limbs changing into a fin, a bird’s head or a predator’s face. Surrealist strategies, such as automatic drawing or writing, including the dream, the unconscious or the coincidence, as well as collective games like the “Cadavre Exquis” are used to generate such diverse hybrids.

The selection of approximately 140 works by 74 international artists includes paintings, sculptures, works on paper, illustrated books and magazines as well as films, which are being shown together with literary texts. This spans an arc from the beginnings of the Surrealist movement in literature and the visual arts of the early 1920s up to the turn of this century, demonstrating the breadth of variation among the artistic positions. Contributions from Belgium, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, Mexico, Sweden, the Czech Republic and the USA illustrate the worldwide reach and network of the movement.

The exhibition Surrealistic Creatures brings together works by André Breton, Luis Buñuel, Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Meret Oppenheim, Man Ray and Pablo Picasso, as well as lesser-known pieces and respectively, works worth rediscovering, for example by Jean Benoît, Greta Knutson, Edith Rimmington, Friedrich Schröder-Sonnenstern or Remedios Varo. Moreover, the museum’s permanent collection will display a multitude of animal portrayals by Max Ernst. Humorously and allusively, monkeys, fish, lions, pigeons or a “dog pavian” populate his imaginative picture worlds.

The show is curated by Dr Jürgen Pech, Chief Curator at Max Ernst Museum, who was awarded the Justus Bier Prize for Curators in 2020.

The exhibition catalogue comprising 280 pages and more than 200 illustrations with contributions by Vera Bornkessel, Jürgen Pech, Achim Sommer, Friederike Voßkamp and Jürgen Wilhelm.