Photo By Gail
Decades after completing his most famous painting — a depiction of a pipe inscribed This is Not a Pipe — Rene Magritte here revisits this iconography with The Shadows (1966). The same masculine- identified object covers ominously behind a tree, inspired by a Surrealist play with arbitrary scale, and what the artist would term the “logic“ of dreams.
Photographed in the San Diego Museum of Art.
Photos By Gail
If your design dreams live somewhere between surrealism and sculpture — with a healthy dose of postmodern glam—then allow me to introduce your new obsession: the Jumbo Cabinet by Pucci de Rossi. First created in the early 1980s, this whimsical chest of drawers is both furniture and flamboyant manifesto. Designed by the late Italian provocateur Pucci de Rossi (1947–2013), this piece boldly declares that utility and art are not mutually exclusive. With its architectural lines and anthropomorphic curves, it’s an object that dares to make the everyday extraordinary.
Continue reading Eye On Design: Pucci de Rossi’s Jumbo Cabinet
Photo By Gail
Pierre Roy (1880 – 1950) was an active participant in the surrealist group in Paris in the 1920s and ’30s. With its realistic rendering of ordinary objects placed in a claustrophobic, anonymous setting, The Storm (1928) typifies “the uncanny“ – a feeling often resulting from the encounter of familiar things in illogical arrangements or contexts. The term was popularized in the early 20th century by Sigmund Freud, and became a prime interest of the Surrealists.
Photographed in the LA County Museum of Art (LACMA).
All Photos By Gail (Mural on June 2, 2024, After Being Tagged)
Here today, gone tomorrow – that’s often the story with the street art in Freeman Alley. No one knows how long these murals, paste-ups, or stickers will last before they’re painted over or tagged into oblivion; it’s simply the nature of the beast. Such is the case with this beautifully surreal mural, which depicts a woman under an umbrella, sipping a martini while submerged up to her chest in what appears to be a flooded New York City.
Continue reading Manhattan Mural By Martin Ron
Photo By Gail
In 1930, Paul Nash (1889 – 1946) traveled to the South of France, staying in a hotel by the sea. The image in Harbour and Room (1932–36) derives from a reflection of a ship in the large mirror which hung in front of his bed. The critic Herbert Read, admired Nash’s response to surrealism, writing “he has dared to transform the English tradition.” In 1936, Harbour and Room was included in both the International Surrealist Exhibition in London and Fantastic Art, Dada, and Surrealism in New York City.
Photographed in the Tate Modern Museum in London.