Remedios Varo

July 28, 2004 9:39 AM

Remedios Varo Gallery: Lovers. Insomnia. Reborn. Hairy Locomotion. Vegetarian Vampires. Still Life Reviving. Varo, who always seems to have "neglected" before her name, was a Spanish-born surrealist in whose work "curious forces seem everywhere to compel even more curious people to acts of some charged significance." (inspired/reminded by this.)
posted by soyjoy (9 comments total)

I know, some of these digital images are a little off-color or grainy, but it was the only site I could find with relatively large-size images. For better reproductions and more info I recommend Unexpected Journeys, the book by which I found out about, and fell in love with, Varo's work.
posted by soyjoy at 9:45 AM on July 28, 2004

Her bio gives her serious Surrealist cred, but her work looks more like fantasy art than Surrealism to me.
posted by kozad at 10:25 AM on July 28, 2004

kozad:

I'm wondering how you define the two. Personally, I see surrealism as art that relies on suprise, juxtiposition, metamorphosis and sub-consious association as its primary methods. I see all of this in Varo's work.

Fantasy art to me seems to be more along the lines of Vallejo and Bell's "Beautiful women and heroic men." Fantasy Art to me seems a bit too much straight-forward illustration in its presentation of idealized scenes from other worlds and times. Certainly there are cross-over artists like Giger but for the most part it seems that fantasy art seems to avoid the kinds of ambiguities and suprises that are central to surrealism.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 12:56 PM on July 28, 2004

KirkJS: Well-argued! Varo is certainly not a fantasy artist along the lines of the artists you mentioned. I like her work, actually. But I don't think she has the surrealist gravitas of Ernst Tanguy Magritte et al (I'm leaving out Dali, in deference to Breton). Surrealists eschew rational and mythological references in their work, quite unlike Varo.
posted by kozad at 7:23 PM on July 28, 2004

Vegetarian vampires is so beautifully wierd. My favorite painting though is The Creation of the Birds.
posted by vacapinta at 9:51 PM on July 28, 2004

I don't know, kozad -- Kahlo used a hell of a lot of mythological references in her paintings, and most people call her a surrealist.

It's a shame that she was in Mexico at the same time as Kahlo & Rivera, but didn't really connect with them -- I can only imagine what that would've created...
posted by Katemonkey at 11:51 PM on July 28, 2004

Surrealists eschew rational and mythological references in their work, quite unlike Varo.

OK, so Dali wasn't a surrealist, because he sure didn't eschew mythological references in Metamorphosis of Narcissus or The Happy Unicorn or Dionysus Spitting..." or Tristan and Isolde (among others).

Varo clearly belongs to the surrealist tradition both in her history and her use of imagery. I really don't see the point in trying to pick that apart or place her into some other genre. It's the power of the paintings, whatever you enjoy calling them, that counts.

It's a shame that she was in Mexico at the same time as Kahlo & Rivera, but didn't really connect with them -- I can only imagine what that would've created...

I agree - but accoring to this, which may not be definitive, the lack of connection was Kahlo's choice: "Kahlo did not welcome or support the women artists who had come from France to Mexico as refugees. In fact she detested them, calling them "those artistic bitches of Paris," and declaring they caused her to vomit, because they were 'rotten' and 'intellectual.'"
posted by soyjoy at 8:19 AM on July 29, 2004

Varo is an amazing artist, really really wonderful.

The whole fantasy art argument is moronic. Please. Is there even such a thing as "fantasy art"? And by "art" I do not mean "something pretty".

I saw some of her stuff for the first time in a women and surrealism show. She used mother-of-pearl in some of her paintings to amazing effect. I remember walking through the rooms looking at the art, and then I got to Varo, and stopped.
posted by ewkpates at 10:22 AM on July 29, 2004

It seems rather odd to me to define Surrealism in such a way that excludes artists who showed in surrealist exhibitions and published in surrealst experimental fiction journals.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 10:50 AM on July 29, 2004