A superhero in a fez (video link) gets an organic artificial hand and fights a pinball sarcophagus in a world reminiscent of Heavy Metal and La Planète sauvage. Music by Birdy Nam Nam. Video animation directed by Steve Scott.
posted by KirkJobSluder on Aug 19, 2009 - 11 comments

The foreign exchange student "Some years ago we had a foreign exchange student come to live with us. We found it very difficult to pronounce his name correctly, but he didn’t mind. He told us just to call him 'Eric'." A short story in pictures by Shaun Tan. Previously.
posted by dhruva on Jul 27, 2009 - 38 comments

The Art & Life of Annie Truxell [via mefi projects]: Annie Truxell is a well known painter who has lived a long and fascinating life. Her adventures have been legendary, encompassing Greenwich Village in the 50s, London in the 60s and India in the 70s. She was friends with Franz Klein, Bill de Kooning, Truman Capote, Terry Southern, Mati Klarwein & many other wild & woolly people.
posted by The Whelk on Jul 12, 2009 - 11 comments

Marc Johns: Drawings on paper, drawings on sticky notes, drawings on rat traps. Twitter, Flickr. Interviews.
posted by gerryblog on Jun 22, 2009 - 7 comments

The Karl Waldmann Museum, where you can see all of his collages.
posted by OmieWise on Jun 11, 2009 - 6 comments

Somewhere between dada and surrealist, Marcel Duchamp revolutionized art with his "readymades," a term for found objects taken directly from society. Except, maybe they weren't. [more inside]
posted by Damn That Television on Jun 1, 2009 - 60 comments

The portfolio of Christian rex Van Minnen. [Via]
posted by homunculus on May 29, 2009 - 11 comments

In 1916, Hugo Ball would fulfill his own dadaist manifesto by reciting his own nonsense poetry at the Cabaret Voltaire (not that Cabaret Voltaire), while wearing a Cubist costume or a cylinder with the number 13 covering his face. Ball's poem, Gadji Beri Bimba, inspired the Talking Heads song, I Zimbra, but his most famous poem is Karawane, a pioneering example of sound poetry. Karawane has more conventional avant-garde versions on YouTube, but none is more surreal than the recitation from memory by Marie Osmond (yes, that Marie Osmond) from a 1980s broadcast of Ripley's Believe It Or Not!
posted by jonp72 on Mar 9, 2009 - 21 comments

Victor Kahn. Jim Warren. Artie Kornfeld.
posted by Esoquo on Jan 19, 2009 - 12 comments

The Eye and the Fly is a video advert (for what, I don't really know) that I think is very well done. On first viewing, it immediately reminded me of Zbig Rybczynski's classic short, Tango, which has been linked on MeFi before.
posted by Manhasset on Dec 8, 2008 - 8 comments

Heiko Müller - Paintings and Drawings. [Via]
posted by homunculus on Nov 25, 2008 - 4 comments

Like others before him Benjamin Rosenbaum is making his debut short story collection, The Ant King And Other Stories, available from his publishers, Small Beer, as a free download. More than this though, he is holding a competition to find the best derivative work inspired by it. These include "translations, plays, movies, radio plays, audiobooks, flashmob happenings, horticultural installations, visual artworks, slash fanfic epics, robot operas, sequels, webcomics, ASCII art, text adventure games, roleplaying campaigns, knitting projects, handmade shoes, or anything else you feel like." [more inside]
posted by ninebelow on Sep 19, 2008 - 19 comments

Ambien Somnambulants. New works by Camille Rose Garcia. [Via] [more inside]
posted by homunculus on Sep 9, 2008 - 5 comments

The art of Joe Vaux. [Via Changethethought]
posted by homunculus on Aug 8, 2008 - 6 comments

The Paintings of Fred Einaudi. [Via everlasting blort]
posted by homunculus on Jul 5, 2008 - 17 comments

Virtual Morphologies - the dark surreal stylings of J. Karl Bogartte. "In 1973 I accidentally discovered that by moving things around on the ordinary copy machine (and in effect, subverting its intended purpose…), strange conjunctions revealed themselves. At the beginning of 2000, I just as suddenly abandoned this process and leaped into the 21st century, exploring the computer and the realms of digital surrealité."
posted by desjardins on Jan 29, 2008 - 6 comments

Terminus. "After inadvertently offending a strange entity that accosts him on his way to work, a 1970s businessman quickly finds himself in the midst of a bizarre predicament." 205.2 MB Quicktime available here. [Via Neatorama.]
posted by homunculus on Nov 21, 2007 - 17 comments

George Melly, singer, writer, and expert on Surrealism, has passed away aged 80.
posted by motty on Jul 5, 2007 - 18 comments

Chema Madoz -- photos
posted by amberglow on Jun 28, 2007 - 29 comments

The most effective Surreality is that which is entirely Unintentional (15-minute Google video). A delightful balance between amusing & disturbing. Harvested from Doctor Macro's MGM Shorts page. Previously.
posted by squalor on Apr 1, 2007 - 19 comments

Kiki de Montparnasse aka Alice Ernestine Prin was a French country girl down on her luck in early 20th century Paris. She would however become a great muse of the avant-garde art scene of the Années Folles, posing for and befriending the likes of Chaim Soutine, Moise Kisling, Amedeo Modigliani, Utrillo, Foujita, Calder, Per Krogh, Pascin, and, most famously, Man Ray, with whom he entertained a steady (if not particularly monogamous) relationship before Lee Miller. During their tumultuous eight-year romance, Kiki was the model for several of his most famous works (with some Surrealist art films thrown in for good measure). She also competed with Jean Cocteau for the affections of sailors in Southern France, was a good friend of Tristan Tzara and received letters of support of Aragon and Desnos when she was jailed for public disorder. A life of excess that ultimately led to her early death in destitution in 1953 also provided stuff for several biographies (the latest one, appropriately enough, a graphic novel), as well as a Hemingway-prefaced autobiography which was banned for obscenity in the US until the '70s, and the odd art exhibition...
posted by Skeptic on Mar 30, 2007 - 14 comments

Very odd illustrations from caricaturist J.J. Grandville's 1868 book L'Exposition de l'Avenir. More oddities from 1829's Les Métamorphoses Du Jour (some in color here), and lots of delightful garden scenes from his 1847 classic Les Fleurs Animees (vol 1, vol 2). Some consider Grandville one of the earliest proto-surrealists. [more Grandville links in this great post at BibliOdyssey]
posted by mediareport on Feb 19, 2007 - 15 comments

If you enjoy strange art, you may like these artists' sites:

• Jade Christina Green
• Michael Onona
• Zademack
• Zalibarek
• Eric Fischl
• Battista Brevigliero
• Ana Szoc

Courtesy Max Szoc.
posted by owhydididoit on Feb 17, 2007 - 11 comments

Topor et moi. Roland Topor was the graphic artist behind the beautiful Planète Sauvage (Cf. a few posts below) but his body of work also included founding the Panic Movement with fellow oddballs Jodorowsky and Arrabal, writing plays and novels (The Tenant, turned into a movie by another Paris-born celebrity of Polish extraction and amateur of bizarre, Roman Polanski), and making strange and popular TV shows for children (YouTube clips from the 80s). Except for the kids shows, most of the links are quite NSFW with abundant sex and/or violence, though in a cartoonish, disturbing, surreal, or even political way: Topor once said (YouTube documentary in French starting with his Phallunculi series) that to renounce sex was to banish oneself from mankind. Topor himself was also a familiar figure of the French cultural landscape, instantly recognisable thanks to his manic cackle (heard at the beginning of this video where he explains how to make art from random pornographic images), that he (over)used to play the madman Renfield in Herzog's Nosferatu.
posted by elgilito on Dec 11, 2006 - 10 comments

Hippopotamouse - authentic works of victorian surrealism
posted by MetaMonkey on Sep 17, 2006 - 24 comments

Surreal, fantastic realist, psychedelic and visionary artists, sculptors and forum. Sites created by Jon Beinart.
posted by nickyskye on Aug 4, 2006 - 8 comments

Edward James (1907 - 1984) was a millionaire Scottish, art patron and surrealist who moved to Mexico in 1947 to grow orchids. After the orchids were destroyed by a freak snowstorm in 1962, he decided to switch to experiments in architecture. He built a monument to surrealism called Las Pozas, just outside of Xilitla. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Jul 11, 2006 - 21 comments

Ink drawings by Ben Tolman: Huge, intricate, somewhat NSFW. There may be an issue with the side frame not scrolling in Firefox; if this is the case, click here, here, here, and here to see the galleries.
posted by Gator on Jul 8, 2006 - 16 comments

The Outlandish Art of Mahlon Blaine. The highlight for me was Nova Venus.
A short biography of Blaine.
Another smaller gallery, which includes illustrations he did for translations of the works of Hanns Heinz Ewers.
[Many/most images on all pages NSFW]
posted by PinkStainlessTail on Jul 5, 2006 - 7 comments

Toddlerpedes (see the rest of the gallery here) are just one part of the Underground Australian Toy Art Collective, which is just one part of the Underground Australian Surreal Art Collective. Admittedly, some of the art is underground for a reason, but you might find something you like. Kim Evan's gallery is pretty neat. So is Julian Treweeke's and Kuba Fiedorowicz's. Some art is NSFW.
posted by arcticwoman on May 26, 2006 - 4 comments

George Bataille's Documents—a short-lived but influential journal conceived as a 'war machine against received ideas'—has inspired an exhibition, Undercover Surrealism (Flash with sound).
posted by jack_mo on May 10, 2006 - 8 comments

The tradition of making Japanese dolls, called ningyo—meaning human figure—goes back as far as 10,000 years to clay figures made during the Jomon period. The more recent rise in popularity, though, is most often traced to Hina Matsuri--Girls' Day, or the Doll Festival, celebrated on March 3--originating during the Edo period. These antique ningyo are highly sought after by collectors, such as the American expert Alan Pate, who has written a number of articles on the subject. The modern Japanese doll culture, however, is anything but traditional. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the ningyo tradition was exported to make toys for the West (previously featured on MeFi), and has culminated in popular Barbie-type dolls such as Superdollfie and others. Contemporary artists have transformed the Japanese doll tradition into something else entirely: Simon Yotsuya, Ryo Yoshida, Koitsukihime, Yoko Ueno, Mario A., Etsuko Miura, and Kai Akemi. A number of these artists were featured in the Dolls of Innocence exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. Of course, notable artists outside Japan have worked with dolls before, including Hans Bellmer, who inspired much of the artwork in Innocence, the follow-up to Ghost in the Shell. Explore more: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. [Several links are nsfw.]
posted by monju_bosatsu on Mar 24, 2006 - 11 comments

Beyond metaphysics, there is 'pataphysics. Beyond metaphor, there is pataphor.
posted by painquale on Jan 15, 2006 - 49 comments

His entire oeuvre soon began to attract the attention of the leading New York art critics: The weird world of Glen Baxter
posted by .kobayashi. on Oct 3, 2005 - 8 comments

Toshio Matsumoto's (J) first film (E), Ginrin (or "Silver Ring"), once believed lost has been found! Ginrin was an English Language, "relatively avant garde" PR film that had perhaps the first use of Musique Concrete in a Japanese film -- in this case, the first score by Toru Takemitsu. The film was discovered to be lost (as a result of the firm it was made for going under) in the 1980s when it was desired for a retrospective on the 1950's Japanese Avant-Garde at the Pompidou Center. [More Inside]
posted by Rev. Syung Myung Me on Sep 11, 2005 - 4 comments

The Art of Fuko Ueda From bighorn sheep to pet turtles to musical instruments, these paintings depict a bizarre and beautiful world filled with strange creatures.
posted by mayfly wake on Aug 2, 2005 - 11 comments

Surreal photography by Alessandro Bavari. [via] Some images NSFW.
posted by Slithy_Tove on Jul 14, 2005 - 13 comments

Shouldn't you cook salmon in your dishwasher? Poaching fish in the dishwasher is a virtually foolproof way to shock your friends, prepare a succulent meal, and do the dishes—all at the same time. Not all of the The Surreal Gourmet's offerings are quite so weird, but they might, as he claims, make you into a culinary hero.
posted by QuietDesperation on Jun 6, 2005 - 20 comments

The dark and unsettling photography of Swedish photographer Fredrik Ödman who explores "the meeting point between logic, imagination and madness." Don't miss his nature portfolios. via The Cartoonist)
posted by madamjujujive on Apr 10, 2005 - 16 comments

The Human Condition. A Mac-based homage to Magritte. [via]
posted by Slithy_Tove on Mar 29, 2005 - 20 comments

From muse to master Lee Miller started out as a Vogue model, but by 1930 she had moved behind the lens to take piercing photographs -- culminating in her rage-fuelled portraits of Nazi kitsch. The "Lee Miller: Portraits" exhibit is at the National Portrait Gallery, London, from February 3 until May 30. More inside.
posted by matteo on Jan 22, 2005 - 15 comments

S. Dali + 3 Marxes. From Marx-Out-Of-Print, "a tribute to The Marx Brothers with full reproductions of books and articles from magazines and other publications that are now 'out of print' and hard to find." Dali was a huge fan of Harpo and once gave him a harp strung with barbed wire. He also wrote a script for the Marx Brothers, which was deemed "too surreal."
posted by Joey Michaels on Dec 16, 2004 - 8 comments

Georges Bataille. Librarian, surrealist, archivist, writer of works on subjects ranging from economics to the erotic. Father of the notion of transgression as a positive force. Frequently name checked and sometimes very confusing. And at this festive time of year, we may also remember his ideas on the gift.
posted by stinkycheese on Dec 7, 2004 - 6 comments

Wonderfully surreal. Five galleries of (literally) fantastic, mostly figurative images by Maggie Taylor. Serendipity has me reading Perdido Street Station at the moment, and these quaintly eerie portraits seem almost as though they could have been plucked from Miéville's mythic population of bizarre Remades, uncanny constructs and outlandish alien races. Beautiful. (Click the eye.)
posted by taz on Jun 14, 2004 - 9 comments

Alfred Jarry. Writer, creator of pataphysics (the science of imaginary solutions), adopted father of the surrealists and extreme bike rider (in reality as well as in Howard Waldrop's Fin de Cycle). His best known work, Ubu Roi, inspired painter Joan Miro, playwright Samuel Beckett (among others) and gave a music group its name. (More Inside)
posted by Joey Michaels on Jun 8, 2004 - 7 comments

Disembodied
posted by dg on Mar 21, 2004 - 16 comments

"A wicked noblewoman presides over a decadent court of masked revelers. The most beautiful of waxen automatons is brought to life by a sorceress, her very heart hiding a deadly secret. And then love triumphs, if but for a single moment, before a sudden and terrifying finale. This is the bizarre world of The Princess of Wax".

Limned by descriptors such as "sinister", "ravishing" and "decadent", illustrated by a noted French surrealist painter, and inspired by a real-life fantastical figure, "The Princess of Wax - a Cruel Tale" (web site here), promises to be a satisfyingly twisted modern addition to the cherished fairy tale genre. More >>>
posted by taz on Sep 15, 2003 - 9 comments

Mark Ryden is to the iconic saucer-eyed urchins of the '60s as Salvador Dali is to Hickory Dickory Dock. His delicate palette, fine details and classical references offer compelling counterpoint to the deliciously disturbing imagery of les tykes terrible in collections such as "Blood: Miniature Paintings of Sorrow & Fear"; "Bunnies and Bees: Paintings Created to Illustrate DIVINE TRUTH in Accordance with the Secret Principles of SCIENCE AND SOUL"; and "The Meat Show: Paintings about Childen, God, and USDA Grade A Beef". Plus, they're kids - with big eyes!
posted by taz on Sep 8, 2003 - 25 comments

An auction of books, paintings, and sculpture from the estate of seminal surrealist Andre Breton began today at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris. Some estimates place the value of the collection at over US$30 million. At lot of art lovers from all over the world don't think this is a very good idea.
posted by MrBaliHai on Apr 1, 2003 - 4 comments

Manimals - discover the strange and unsettling world of photographer-digital artist Daniel Lee and his darwinian art.
posted by madamjujujive on Oct 25, 2002 - 15 comments