Karel Teige was a major figure in the Czech avant-garde; a writer, designer, typographer and collagist.
He was a member of
Devětsil and later joined the Prague Surrealist group with
Toyen and
Jindrich Styrsky.
Here are some of his
Book Covers of the 1920- and 1930's and 1926 he made
ABECEDA with each letter posed by the dancer Milca Mayerová.
Here is a
video reconstruction of the dance moves.
Teige died in 1951 of a heart attack, said to be a result of a ferocious Soviet press campaign against him as a 'Trotskyite degenerate,' his papers were destroyed by the secret police, and his published work was suppressed for decades.
The
Central European Review has some articles on his work.
posted by adamvasco
on May 9, 2012 -
5 comments
LACMA is currently hosting "
In Wonderland", a retrospective of Surrealist art by female artists from Mexico and the United States. This is a great chance to check out some under-appreciated artists, who were often overshadowed by their male counterparts.
[more inside]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll
on Feb 13, 2012 -
5 comments
The paintings of Sergey Tyukanov are rich in colors, in characters, in details, delightful the eyes from the first sight. Each work is like a little world, where people live according to different rules. Normal proportions not respected in his works; surrealism characterizes his art the best, and traces of the Russian customs and traditional costumes may be spotted without much difficulty. It all seems to happen in a Russian fairytale or in the nightmare of an artist-because only in the head of an artist’s genius, such a nightmare could be born.*
posted by Trurl
on Sep 28, 2011 -
9 comments
in 1976, surrealist icon Salvador Dali starred and directed in the fake documentary/travelogue Impressions de la haute Mongolie - Impressions of Upper Mongolia - about his quest to find a rare hallucinogenic mushroom. It was intended as a tribute to the late
Raymond Roussel. It is available on Youtube in 5 parts.
1 -
2 -
3 -
4 -
5 (70 min)
posted by The Whelk
on Sep 3, 2011 -
25 comments
Berlin, circa 1921: The painter Hans Richter turns his talents to film and produces one of the earliest abstract films, Rhythmus 21. Clocking in at just over three minutes, it's a significant departure from the newsreels, romances, cliff-hangers, and penny-dreadfuls that made up the bulk of film production in the early ’20s—the first decade in which the film industry began to play a major economic and cultural role around the world. [more inside]
posted by scody
on Jun 14, 2011 -
9 comments
Leonora Carrington, one of the few living links to the movement that counted Dali, Ernst, Tanguy, and Man Ray as its members, passed away Wednesday at the age of 94. Born in Britain, she earned her
surrealist credentials primarily as a painter, but also as a novelist.
Forced to flee Europe during WWII, she ended up in Mexico, where she championed another expat European female artist,
Remedios Varo. Though both were overshadowed by the more flamboyant
Frida Kahlo, all three were strongly influenced by the culture of Mexico, and took surrealism in a new, and decidedly feminine direction.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll
on May 26, 2011 -
15 comments
At the 1938 Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme in Paris.
each of fifteen artists were given a dressmaker's mannequin as their canvas and encouraged to transform the figure in any way they desired.
The artists included (in order of appearance in this video) Salvador Dalí, Óscar Dominguez, Marcel Duchamp, Léo Malet, André Masson, Joan Miró, Wolfgang Paalen, Kurt Seligmann, Yves Tanguy, Marcel Jean, Max Ernst, Espinoza, Maurice Henry, Sonia Mossé, and Man Ray. Here are
some stills.
posted by adamvasco
on Aug 12, 2010 -
3 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
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
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
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
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
"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
