Functioning outside of reason and control, surrealism was an attractive movement for artists seeking alternatives to political realities in the twentieth century. As a medium, photographs particularly appealed, thanks in part to their ability to manipulate reality, subtly distorting the quotidian in a tribute to the uncanny.
André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto, released 100 years ago, set the tone for this blurring of reality and fiction, a milestone now marked by Loewe and Loewe Foundation with an exhibition in Madrid. Throughout, curator María Millán draws on works created throughout the last century, from 24 artists based in Europe, Asia and the Americas, from recognised surrealist artists through to fashion photographers.
Offbeat photographic techniques, from sandwiched negatives, to double exposures, solarisation and photomontage are jarring juxtapositions against lighting and props that lend a sense of otherness to staging. Skewed proportions and different perspectives are seen in works such as Horst P. Horst’s Robert Wilson on Paul Walter Chair (1990), where a man on an oversized chair rests against a backdrop of painted clouds, or in David Wojnarowicz’s New York (1988), a collage of a steam train and a skeleton, which appears as if an X-Ray.
Elsewhere, surrealism’s fantastical nature is viewed through a religious lens by artists including Graciela Iturbide and Lola Álvarez Bravo, while portraits of Jean Cocteau by Berenice Abbott, Lucien Clergue, Philippe Halsman, Germaine Krull and Dora Maar lean towards more traditional surrealist sensibilities.
Loewe and Loewe Foundation presents 'Surrealist Centennial' at the Leica Gallery, Madrid, as part of PHotoESPAÑA, until 14 September 2024
