Trevor Paglen @ Pace Gallery, NYC - "Cardinals" Exhibition

Trevor Paglen: Cardinals

Pace Gallery, New York

June 26 - August 15, 2025

Trevor Paglen 

Near Lichau Creek (undated), n.d. 

© Trevor Paglen, courtesy Pace Gallery

Pace presents an exhibition of work by TREVOR PAGLEN at its 540 West 25th Street gallery in New York. This focused presentation features photographs of novel aerial phenomena captured by the artist in the American West over the last two decades. Bringing together a selection of prints and polaroids, this show will explore the relationships between UFO (Unidentified Flying Object) sightings, Artificial Intelligence, and the rise of disinformation in today’s media environment—which has all but obliterated the notion of ‘truth.’ As Trevor Paglen has said, we live in “a historical moment wherein our relationships to text, images, information, and media are being entirely upended,” and UFOs, deployed by the US military and intelligence agencies as psychological instruments since the 1950s, “blur lines between perception, imagination, and 'objective' reality, whatever that may or may not be.”

The artist, whose rigorous practice spans photography, sculpture, video, and installation, is known for his investigations of invisible phenomena and forces, including technological, scientific, socio-political, and historical subjects. Through his work, Trevor Paglen has explored Artificial Intelligence, surveillance, data collection, and militarism in America, meditating on the ways these issues influence modes of perceiving and relating to the natural world—from the landscapes of the US to the cosmological realms beyond the Earth.

“UFOs live in the latent space between the material, the sensible, and the perceptual,” Trevor Paglen said of his enduring interest in the history of UFO photography. “They inhabit the crossroads of fear, desire, logic, and hope. They produce communities of believers and debunkers, and dreams of divine salvation, endless energy, impossible physics, dark conspiracies, and existential fears.”

The otherworldly, entirely undoctored photographs on view at Pace in New York this summer depict diminutive UFOs amid sprawling landscapes near US military test sites and training bases in California and Utah, including one near Robert Smithson’s seminal land artwork Spiral Jetty. Trevor Paglen has been capturing his UFO images since 2002, often while carrying out research and site visits for other projects. Exploiting the hyper memetic qualities of the UFO, he insists on the mysteries of his images by withholding information about what exactly he has captured—in some cases, the contents of these photographs are unknown to the artist as well.

He produced these photographs with various cameras: a Phillips Compact II 8x10, a Wista 4x5 field camera, a Pentax medium-format handheld, a Canon 35mm, and two digital medium-format cameras, one modified to shoot infrared. Most of the works in this series were shot on analog Kodak Portra, T-Max, or Fuji FP Instant film.

Paglen’s UFO photographs can be understood in conversation with his body of images of “unids,” or “unidentifieds”—the many hundreds of unknown objects in orbit around the Earth that are monitored and tracked by the US military—which he captured using infrared telescopes in remote locations. Atmospheric and mysterious, these skyscapes, which figured in Paglen’s 2023 solo show with Pace in New York, show the light trails of “unids,” drawing out the abstracted, textural qualities of the cosmos.

Concurrent with his exhibition of UFO photographs at Pace, Trevor Paglen is presenting work in the group exhibition "The World Through AI", on view at the Jeu de Paume in Paris through September 21, 2025.

TREVOR PAGLEN (b. 1974, Camp Springs, Maryland) is known for investigating the invisible through the visible, with a wide-reaching approach that spans image making, sculpture, investigative journalism, writing, engineering, and numerous other disciplines.

The clandestine and the hidden are revealed in series such as The Black Sites, The Other Night Sky, and Limit Telephotography in which the limits of vision are explored through the histories of landscape photography, abstraction, Romanticism, and technology. Paglen’s investigation into the epistemology of representation can be seen in his Symbology and Code Names series which utilize text, video, object, and image to explore questions surrounding military culture and language. Among his chief concerns are learning how to see the historical moment we live in and developing the means to imagine alternative futures.

Trevor Paglen has had numerous one-person exhibitions, including at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (2019); Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (2015); Eli & Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University, East Lansing (2015); Protocinema Istanbul (2013); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands (2013); and Vienna Secession (2010). He has participated in group exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2008, 2010, 2018); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2014); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2012); Tate Modern, London (2010), and numerous other institutions.

PACE NEW YORK

540 West 25th Street, New York City

www.pacegallery.com

Suresh Prandi @ Maroncelli 12 Gallery, Milan - "Spirit and Spectres in Suresh's colour​​" Exhibition

Spirit and Spectres in Suresh's colour​​

Maroncelli 12 Gallery, Milan

Through September 26, 2025

Maroncelli 12 gallery presents the Suresh Prandi’s debut on the art scene and the power of his painting. “Spirito e spettri nel colore di Suresh / Spirit and Spectres in Suresh’s colour” is curated by art historian Bianca Tosatti. This is the first ever exhibition of this young artist. 

The exhibition will continue at the Gliacrobati gallery in Turin, in June-July 2026. 

Suresh Prandi’s works move emotions: the artist’s vision breaks the canonical scheme of perspective, in a dense carpet of pasty chromatic fields, supported by black strokes that allude to forms of human features. Suresh Prandi’s creative process is born from a meditative state during which the lines become tangled on a chromatic base stratified on many levels: in fact, as in the gymnastics that the artist systematically practices, spiritual understanding cannot be seen unless one learns the right techniques. And in this mass of matter, the eye emerges - more eyes - that attract the viewer and like magnets suck him into "lakes" of color. 

"And at once I find the eye that is looking back at me: extraordinarily large, fixed and enquiring - writes Bianca Tosatti in the critical text in the catalog -; a vortex sucking me inward, amplifying the tremors of my mental terrain; an outward explosion of my existence whose forms it shakes. And so the work becomes a subject-gaze situated in the field of the Other, because it is the image that looks at the subject".

Suresh Prandi was born on June 9, 1998 in Bangalore (India), where he spent his early years with his parents. At the age of eight he was adopted by the Prandi family and moved to Campogalliano, a small village in the province of Modena, where he still lives. He regularly attended elementary, middle and high school, graduating from the professional institute of Correggio (Reggio Emilia) in “Services for Agriculture and Rural Development”. Thanks to his idol, Cristiano Ronaldo, Suresh Prandi first became passionate about football and then about gymnastics, developing a true cult for the body, around which all his days now revolve. In 2018 Suresh Prandi began his placement at the day center of the Nazareno cooperative in Carpi, in the province of Modena (an association for the reception, care and rehabilitation of people with disabilities), where he began to express himself through drawing. Noticing his natural talent and the benefits he derives from it in terms of relationships and personal well-being, in 2024 it was decided to permanently include him in Manolibera painting atelier, where he works every day. 

The artist often uses oil pastels to create a chromatic mosaic that almost entirely covers the previously created drawing; he is a master in the combination of color that never fades into the next shade but it is placed next to it as if the hues and combinations were innate. And speaking of “Landscape with Angel”, Bianca Tosatti writes: “The colour is approached in a circumspect and yet ambitious way; weighed and divided like the cones of pigment on an Indian market stall, arranged by a wise seller so that the emotional value of each one can be perceived”. 

MARONCELLI 12 GALLERY

Via Maroncelli, 12 – Milan

maroncelli12.it

Spirit and Spectres in Suresh's colour​​

Maroncelli 12 Gallery, Milan, May 28 – September 26, 2025

Shahzia Sikander: The Last Post @ SAAM - Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Shahzia Sikander: The Last Post

Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington

July 3, 2025 – July 12, 2026

Shahzia Sikander 

The Last Post, 2010

Single-channel HD digital animation, color,

5.1 surround sound; 10:00 minutes 

Music: Du Yun 

Smithsonian American Art Museum, 

Museum purchase through the 

Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment,

 in partnership with the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center, 2025.11

© 2025, Shahzia Sikander. 

Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles

Shahzia Sikander’s iconoclastic multimedia explorations encompass drawing and painting, mosaics, sculpture and video. She initially trained in an illustration tradition—classical Indo-Persian miniature painting—that was bounded by frames, borders and precise architecture. From this, she developed her unique, disruptive style.  

Through precisely inked and animated scenes, Sikander’s video animation “The Last Post” (2010) critically considers the legacy of British colonialism in Asia, using her signature approach of infusing Indo-Persian manuscript compositions with a contemporary perspective. “The Last Post” centers a European gentleman in a red waistcoat, a symbol of British imperial power, based on miniature paintings from the late 18th century depicting British East India Company officials. Indian court architecture, Chinese cut-paper silhouettes and a watercolor map of South Asia all dissolve and reconfigure around him as electronic beats by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun explode on the soundtrack.  

“The Last Post” was acquired in 2025 by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The work is presented in a dedicated gallery for immersive media art installations that opened in 2023 on the museum’s third floor. The 10-minute film runs continuously and can be entered at any time. The presentation is organized by Saisha Grayson, curator of time-based media at the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

SAAM - Smithsonian American Art Museum

8th and G Streets, NW, Washington, DC 20004

americanart.si.edu

Lavett Ballard, Amber Robles-Gordon, Evita Tezeno @ Driskell Center, University of Maryland, College Park - "Solace and Sisterhood" Exhibition

Solace and Sisterhood

Lavett Ballard, Amber Robles-Gordon, Evita Tezeno

Driskell Center, University of Maryland, College Park

September 10 - December 10, 2025

Evita Tezeno 

True Sistahs, 2024 

Acrylic and mixed media collage on canvas, 48 × 48 in. 

Courtesy of Luis de Jesus Los Angeles and the artist

The Driskell Center announces the exhibition Solace and Sisterhood, a group exhibition featuring the work of contemporary artists Lavett Ballard, Amber Robles-Gordon, and Evita Tezeno. 

Solace and Sisterhood brings the powerful dynamic of sisterhood to the forefront by showcasing the work of three prominent Black female artists: Lavett Ballard, Amber Robles-Gordon, and Evita Tezeno. Curated by Dr. Lauren Davidson, this exhibit explores the depth of Black sisterhood, highlighting the strength, resilience, and bond that unites these women, both individually and as a collective.

Through their artwork, Ballard, Robles-Gordon, and Tezeno invite viewers into their personal and shared experiences, offering a window into the powerful friendships and sisterhood they have cultivated over the years. Drawing from their own histories and the broader African American and African diasporic narratives, the artists use a diverse range of media — including painting, collage, photography, and mixed media — to reflect on themes of self-identity, Black female beauty, spiritual awakening, and the impact of shared cultural traditions. Their work transcends simple categorizations, questioning conventional perceptions of Black womanhood and challenging stereotypes in both contemporary and historical contexts.

Each artist brings a unique perspective to the exhibit. Lavett Ballard's work explores themes of spiritual and cultural connection, using visual storytelling to reflect on the power of faith and the transformative nature of Black womanhood. Amber Robles-Gordon blends abstraction with personal symbolism, creating intricate and thought-provoking works that delve into the complexities of Black female identity and empowerment. Evita Tezeno's vibrant and layered collage works engage with the intersection of history, race, and Black joy, offering a reflective vision of Black womanhood that celebrates its quiet beauty and strength in the face of societal challenges.

Solace and Sisterhood has been guest curated by Dr. Lauren Davidson, an independent curator and scholar, who notes, “Sisterhood is more than a familial bond — it’s a vital, necessary force for survival and affirmation in the lives of Black women. The work of these three artists goes beyond mere friendship and becomes a manifestation of this sisterhood: a way to reframe narratives, challenge societal expectations, and assert our rightful place in the world.” Works in this exhibition have been generously loaned by the artists, private collectors, Luis De Jesus Los Angeles Gallery, and Morton Fine Art, L.L.C. has been guest curated by Dr. Lauren Davidson, an independent curator and scholar, who notes, “Sisterhood is more than a familial bond — it’s a vital, necessary force for survival and affirmation in the lives of Black women. The work of these three artists goes beyond mere friendship and becomes a manifestation of this sisterhood: a way to reframe narratives, challenge societal expectations, and assert our rightful place in the world.” Works in this exhibition have been generously loaned by the artists, private collectors, Luis De Jesus Los Angeles, and Morton Fine Art, L.L.C. The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication — available for free — with essays by the curator and Dr. Jordana Saggese, as well as full-color images of the works. This exhibition was originally organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Arlington, VA, and is supported in part by the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) and the University of Maryland's Arts for All initiative. It is part of the NEXTNow Fest.

ARTIST LAVETT BALLARD

b. 1970, East Orange, NJ

Lives and works in Willingboro, NJ

Lavett Ballard’s work is in public and private collections, including the US Embassy in Kambala, Uganda, the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University, Stockton University Art Collection and the collections of ABC Studios, CBS Studios, and NBC/Universal Studios. Ballard created two commissioned covers for TimeMagazine: one in March 2020 for the 100th anniversary of Women’s Suffrage and a second in February 2023 to accompany Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson’s essay about her book CASTE: Origins of our Discontent.

Lavett Ballard holds a BA in Studio Art and Art History from Rutgers University and an MFA from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia and is an adjunct professor at Rowan College of South Jersey. Ballard is represented by Galerie Myrtis in Baltimore.

ARTIST AMBER ROBLES-GORDON

b. 1977, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Lives and works in Washington, DC

Amber Robles-Gordon is an Afro-Latina interdisciplinary visual artist whose creations are visual representations of her hybridism: a fusion of her gender, ethnicity, cultural, and social experiences. Her assemblages, large sculptures, installations, and public artwork, emphasize the essentialness of spirituality and temporality within life.

Robles-Gordon’s work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at the American University Museum (Washington, DC), Morton Fine Art (Washington, DC), Derek Eller Gallery (New York, NY), and the August Wilson African American Cultural Center (Pittsburgh, PA), among other venues, and in group exhibitions across the United States and internationally. She was a resident at the American Academy in Rome in 2019 and a semi-finalist for the Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize in 2022. She holds an MFA from Howard University and a BS from Trinity College.

ARTIST EVITA TEZENO

b. 1960, Port Arthur, TX

Lives and works in Dallas, TX

Evita Tezeno’s collage paintings employ richly patterned hand-painted papers and found objects. They depict a cast of characters in harmonious scenes inspired by her family and friends, childhood memories in South Texas, personal dreams, and moments from her adult life and influenced by the great 20th century modernists Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, and William H. Johnson.

Tezeno’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Pérez Art Museum (Miami, FL), the Dallas Museum of Art, African American Museum of Dallas, Figge Art Museum (Davenport, IA) Embassy of the Republic of Madagascar; and Pizzuti Collection (Columbus, OH) among many others. She is the recipient of a 2023 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and, in 2012, the Elizabeth Catlett Award for the New Power Generation. She is represented by Luis de Jesus Los Angeles.

CURATOR LAUREN DAVIDSON

Dr. Lauren Davidson is an independent art curator and founder of Museum Nectar Art Consultancy, L.L.C. Her research interests include Black cultural aesthetic theory, visual culture, and the influence of place and geographical migration throughout the African Diaspora. Recent curatorial projects include Collecting Community:Millenium Arts Salon at 25 (co-curated with Jarvis Dubois), Chosen Family, The Ties That Bind and Zero Dollar Bill: The Prints of Imar Lyman (co-curated with Jarvis Dubois), and Bria Edwards: More Time in A Day.

DRISKELL CENTER

The David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and the African Diaspora

University of Maryland - College of Arts & Humanities

1214 Cole Student Activities Building, College Park, MD 20742

driskellcenter.umd.edu

Eric Dever @ Berry Campbell Gallery, NYC - "Points of Interest" Exhibition

Eric Dever: Points of Interest 

Berry Campbell Gallery, New York

3 July - 15 August 2025

Berry Campbell Gallery presents its fourth exhibition of paintings by contemporary artist ERIC DEVER. Eric Dever: Points of Interest is an exploration into the temporal dimensions of plant life and the ecological impact of climate change. Eric Dever lives and works in Water Mill, New York, and often looks to his studio garden for inspiration. His “points of interest” further extend to Water Mill’s surrounding watershed, regional travel to arboretums and botanical gardens, nature reserves, and notable historic vistas, reflecting a sustained engagement with natural and cultivated environments.

Eric Dever’s paintings teeter between representation and abstraction balancing these two modalities with ease. In some works, Eric Dever renders botanical forms in clear frontal depictions that are immediately recognizable; in others, plant forms dissolve into expansive abstractions that appear to spill over the edge of the canvas. This interplay of styles unfolds across the nineteen works in this exhibition, many of which are Dever’s largest and most ambitious paintings to date.

As Dr. Giovanni Aloi states in the exhibition catalogue: “In Eric Dever’s paintings, time is neither background nor metaphor: it is substance. Just as the garden stages a choreography of slow unfolding, Dever’s canvases are accumulations of temporal gestures, each brushstroke a pulse in the continuum of material and spiritual becomings.”

Eric Dever recently had a painting acquired by the Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, New York, which was included in The Rains are Changing Fast: Acquisitions in Context. He was also included in Seeing Red: From Renoir to Warhol at the Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York, along with Parrish Perspectives curated by Alicia Longwell at the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York. Additionally, Eric Dever has participated in the United States Art and Embassies program loaning paintings to Hong Kong, Macau, and Helsinki. Dr. Gail Levin and Margery Gosnell-Qua have written about Dever’s paintings, and Helen Harrison and Patrick Christiano have interviewed the artist. In recent years, Eric Dever was the recipient of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts residency in Montauk, New York. Eric Dever is preparing for a solo exhibition at the Greenville County Museum of Art, South Carolina, in 2026.

BERRY CAMPBELL GALLERY

524 W 26th Street, New York, NY 10001

berrycampbell.com

Group Show @ Skoto Gallery, NYC. Artists including Uche Okeke, Lula Mae Blocton, Juliana Zevallos, Trokon Nagbe, Afi Nayo...

Group Show

Skoto Gallery, New York

May 29 – July 26, 2025

Afi Nayo, Ahmed Nosseir, Bernard Guillot, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Cathy Lebowitz, David Rich, Diako, Fathi Hassan, Katherine Taylor, Khalid Kodi, Lula Mae Blocton, Michael Marshall, Olu Amoda, Piniang, Rosemary Karuga SoHyun Bae, Sophie Leys, Trokon Nagbe, Uche Okeke, Wosene Kosrof, Juliana Zevallos 

Skoto Gallery presents Group Show, an exhibition that brings together works by a diverse group of established and emerging artists working in a variety of media including painting, drawing, photography and sculpture.

With a mix of abstraction and sensitive realism that combines technical accomplishment with strong aesthetic appeal, the artists in this exhibition work across different time-periods and styles. Each of the artists re-imagines history, inheritance and vast possibilities in their work through the lens of individual and collective experiences, offering fresh perspectives that reflect the complexities and realities of contemporary identity. Each artist utilizes a particular rigor and economy which encourages a clarity of intent and simplicity of execution.

Afi Nayo’s (b. 1969, Lome, Togo) work is intensely personal and displays a blend of fragility, modesty and refinement. She uses pyro gravure and mixed media technique on wood panel to create pictures that consist of fantastic dream images, wit and imagination as well as overtones of fantasy and satire. They are dense with sensual surfaces, formal rigors and color harmonies that demonstrate a playful openness to art historical influences, while simultaneously encouraging multiple layers of meanings. She uses a complex language of symbols and signs drawn from the unconscious to obtain a poetic amalgam of abstraction and reality. She presently divides her time between Paris, France and Lome, Togo.

Trokon Nagbe draws on themes of memory, migration, history and the passage of time through the filter of personal experience. Firmly rooted in a framework of references that reflect his African heritage, he strives to push the bounds of his aesthetic while exploring intricate, and often paradoxical, relationship between the material and the spiritual, collective and the individual identity as well as the interior and the exterior. The visual resonance in his work is undeniable, attesting to his ability to seamlessly fuse ancient and modern concepts and aesthetic on new and innovative modes of representation while still contesting the meanings of the post-modern encounter between tradition and modernity.

Juliana Zevallos uses a wide range of media including her background as a versatile printmaker to create complex and poetic works layered with meaning and surface texture where some overlapping forms are fully present while other forms are partially obscured. They are simple, serene and as mature as thought. Closely viewed, her work is an invitation for contemplation that strives to reconcile intelligence and sensibility, knowledge and intuition as well as matter and spirit.

Lula Mae Blocton is an African American artist and painter. Color is her passion. What she has been dealing with is the quality of color, looking at it and perceiving it as transparent. Throughout her career she has tried to identify herself through the use of color relationships and structure. Her work can be seen as specific stages of developing towards these goals. Lula’s early work consisted of overlapping geometric patterns creating transparent combinations of color, much like weaving cloth to create a pattern.

Uche Okeke (1933-2016) Renowned for his immense contribution to the development of modern Nigerian art and pioneering visual experimentations with traditional Igbo Uli mural and body design, Uche Okeke’s early drawings in graphite, charcoal or ink are pure meditations upon the nature of line itself. A master of lyrical and sensitive lines, he uses resplendent curves and fluid lines to convey the true harmonies of his artistic vision. His work is in several permanent collections including the National Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Newark Museum, Newark, NJ; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD; The High Museum, Atlanta, GA, Iwalewa Haus, Bayreuth, Germany. He was included in the exhibition Stranieri Ovunque-Foreigners Everywhere, curated by Adriano Pedrosa at the 2024 Venice Biennale, Venice Italy.

SKOTO GALLERY

529 W 20th Street, New York, NY, 100011

skotogallery.com

Bienvenue: African American Artists in France @ Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York

Bienvenue: African American Artists in France 

Michael Rosenfeld, New York

Through July 25, 2025

“There is a breadth, a generosity, an obsolete cosmopolitanism about her [France's] recognition of the fine arts, which bars no nationality, no race, no school, or variation of artistic method. All she asks is that the art shall be true, in other words that it shall set forth life.”—Henry Ossawa Tanner, 1908 [1]

“Life in Paris offers me the anonymity and objectivity to release long-stored memories of sorrow, and the beauty of the difficult effort to release and orchestrate in form and color a personal design. Being in France gives time for reflection. One never leaves home if one was never there.”—Beauford Delaney, 1966 [2]

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery presents Bienvenue: African American Artists in France, a historical survey of seventeen Black American artists who lived and worked in France from the late nineteenth century through the present. Complementing the landmark exhibition Paris Noir: Artistic circulations and anti-colonial resistance, 1950–2000, on view at the Centre Pompidou through June 30th, Bienvenue offers an expanded look into the presence of Black American artists in France, many of whom were seeking respite from the systemic racism that limited their opportunities for education and the recognition of their work in the United States. Where Paris Noir encompasses artists of the larger African diaspora working in the second half of the twentieth century, Bienvenue: African American Artists in France focuses specifically on American artists, and spans nearly eight decades in its chronological scope, beginning with a 1912 painting by Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859–1937) and ending with a 1989 sculpture by Barbara Chase-Riboud (b.1934).

Bienvenue: African American Artists in France features works by Richmond Barthé (1901–1989), Barbara Chase-Riboud (b.1934), Ed Clark (1926–2019), Robert Colescott (1925–2009), Harold Cousins (1916–1992), Beauford Delaney (1901–1979), Herbert Gentry (1919–2003), Sam Gilliam (1933–2022), Palmer Hayden (1890–1973), Richard Hunt (1935–2023) William H. Johnson (1901–1970), Augusta Savage (1892–1962), William Edouard Scott (1884–1964), Albert Alexander Smith (1896–1940), Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859–1937), Bob Thompson (1937–1966) and Hale Woodruff (1900–1980).

Widely regarded as the patriarch of Black American artists, Henry Ossawa Tanner remains a foremost painter of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the first Black American artist to achieve international fame. His relocation from Philadelphia to Paris in 1891 set a precedent that would inspire future generations of Black American artists to train, reside, or sojourn in France, including Harlem Renaissance master William Edouard Scott, who studied under Tanner from 1910–13. Likewise, Palmer Hayden, Augusta Savage, and Hale Woodruff each sought an audience with the elder master during their time in France in the 1920s and 1930s. In addition to invaluable advice on navigating the mores of French society, Tanner also provided guidance on painting techniques and openly shared his understanding of art. In a 1970 issue of The Crisis, Hale Woodruff recalled his formative encounter with Tanner in 1928. Traveling to the small town in Picardy where Tanner lived in semi-retirement, Woodruff introduced himself to “a remarkable man of profound intelligence and scholarship,” who welcomed the young artist into his home. Upon asking who had most inspired him in the Parisian museums, Woodruff recalled Tanner’s nomination of Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne as the most important painters of the modern age, elaborating:

“Remember that light can be many things: light for illuminating an object or for creating a mood; for purposes of dramatization as in a theatrical production. For myself, I see light chiefly as a means of achieving a luminosity, a luminosity not consisting of various light-colors but luminosity within a limited color range, say, a blue or blue-green. There should be a glow which indeed consumes the theme or subject. Still, a light-glow which rises and falls in intensity as it moves through the painting. It isn’t simple to put into words.”[3]

Though the country was not free of racism, France generally afforded Black artists and intellectuals greater respect and more opportunities than the United States during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Such was the environment that prompted James Baldwin to make Paris his home in 1948, and he spent the ensuing years encouraging his good friend Beauford Delaney to join him. Delaney eventually agreed, moving from his Greene Street loft in Greenwich Village to Montparnasse in 1953. Delaney would remain in the vicinity of Paris for the remainder of his life, composing a singular body of gestural, chromatically nuanced abstractions and a celebrated series of portraits that reflect the creative and spiritual inspiration he felt in the European capital. “I left New York for Paris in 1953, and I have painted with greater freedom ever since,” Delaney wrote some ten years after leaving the United States. “I tried to paint light, different kinds of light, and my painting has been associated with ‘abstraction.’ But there are no precise limits for me between ‘abstract’ and ‘figurative’ paintings and I have always continued to paint portraits of friends.”[4] Beauford Delaney is a particularly strong presence in Paris Noir, which features twelve paintings by the artist, eight of which are on loan from Michael Rosenfeld Gallery.

While Paris has always been a cultural hub for creatives and intellectuals, many artists featured in Bienvenue traveled to the countryside or coast to paint, following the tradition of the Impressionist and modernist masters that inspired them. The exhibition offers key examples of this tradition, including maritime paintings by Palmer Hayden and a coastal scene by Tanner executed along the coast of Brittany; a seminal painting by William H. Johnson depicting the idyllic coastal town of Cagnes-Sur-Mer; a landscape portraying the island of Port-Cros off the French Riviera by Delaney; and a scene of the Eure river by Woodruff executed in Chartres.

The cosmopolitan hub of Paris was a natural attraction for Black American artists, who found the city’s architecture, social spaces, and creative circles to be rich sources of inspiration. Several works in the exhibition feature distinctly Parisian subjects, including Richmond Barthé’s iconic sculpture of Senegalese cabaret dancer Feral Benga; William Edouard Scott’s transcendent portrayal of Notre Dame; and a classic rendition of the Pont Neuf by Hale Woodruff. Parisian nightlife is likewise a recurring theme of the exhibition; in addition to Barthé’s bronze portrait of Benga, drawings by Robert Colescott and Albert Alexander Smith depicting cabaret performances are also on view.

Opportunities for education and art training were another primary draw for many artists, particularly in the postwar era. The exhibition features two abstract paintings by Ed Clark, who enrolled at L'académie de la Grande Chaumière in 1952; major sculptures by Harold Cousins, who studied at Ossip Zadkine’s studio in 1949; and a quintessential abstract painting by Herbert Gentry, who likewise studied under Zadkine and at L'académie de la Grande Chaumière in the late 1940s. Four paintings by Bob Thompson are also on view; executed during his first trip to Europe in 1961–62, these works testify to the hours Thompson spent at the Louvre and Paris’ many other museums, soaking up the compositional devices of the Old Masters and translating them into thoroughly contemporary paintings using his own unique expressionist voice.

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery is recognized for modern and contemporary art. Since its founding in 1989, the gallery has been committed to expanding the canon of American art by championing artists who have made vital contributions to surrealism, social realism, abstract expressionism, figurative expressionism, and geometric abstraction. Michael Rosenfeld Gallery’s dedication to presenting the work of nineteenth and twentieth century Black American masters is as longstanding as the gallery itself; in addition to dozens of solo exhibitions focused on Black American artists, the gallery organized the renowned annual exhibition series African-American Art: 20th Century Masterworks from 1993–2003.

Notes:

[1] Henry Ossawa Tanner quoted in Dewey F. Mosby, Across continents and cultures: The Art and Life of Henry Ossawa Tanner (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1995), 7–8

[2] Beauford Delaney quoted in John Ashbery, “American Sanctuary in Paris,” ARTnews Annual vol. 31 (1966): 146

[3] Tanner quoted in Hale Woodruff, “My Meeting with Henry O. Tanner,” The Crisis (June 1970), reprinted in Explorations in the City of Light: African-American Artists in Paris, 1945-1965, exh. cat. (New York: The Studio Museum in Harlem, 1996), 11

[4] Beauford Delaney, artist statement, “Beauford Delaney - Career as a Creative Artist,” c.1963, Beauford Delaney collection, Sc MG 59, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division, The New York Public Library, New York, NY

MICHAEL ROSENFELD GALLERY

100 Eleventh Avenue @ 19th, New York, NY, 10011

www.michaelrosenfeldart.com

Bienvenue: African American Artists in France 

Michael Rosenfeld, New York, May 10 – July 25, 2025

Related Posts:

Americans in Paris: Artists Working in Postwar France, 1946–1962 

Grey Art Museum, New York University, March 2 - July 20, 2024

Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction 1964 - 1980

Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, April 5 - July 2, 2006

Ed Clark: Paint is the Subject @ Hauser & Wirth Zurich - Exhibition Curated by Tanya Barson

Ed Clark: Paint is the Subject

Hauser & Wirth Zurich

13 June – 13 September 2025

Ed Clark in his studio, early 2000s

© The Estate of Ed Clark

Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth

Ed Clark in Paris, 1954

© The Estate of Ed Clark

Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth

Ed Clark

Untitled, ca. 1968

Acrylic on shaped canvas

294 x 408.3 x 4.1 cm / 115 3/4 x 160 3/4 x 1 5/8 in

Photo: Fredrik Nilsen

© The Estate of Ed Clark

Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth

Ed Clark

Untitled, 2002

Acrylic on canvas

170.2 x 239.1 cm / 67 x 94 1/8 in

Photo: Sarah Muehlbauer

© The Estate of Ed Clark

Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth

Hauser & Wirth Zurich, Limmatstrasse presents ‘Ed Clark. Paint is the Subject,’ the first solo exhibition in Switzerland dedicated to this pioneering American abstractionist. Curated by Tanya Barson in close collaboration with the artist’s estate, the exhibition brings together key works spanning seven decades, offering a comprehensive overview of Clark’s groundbreaking practice. The exhibition features a broad selection of his dynamic large-scale paintings and works on paper, as well as early works and an example of his use of the shaped canvas. The presentation is complemented by archival photographs and documents that provide biographical and historical context, tracing the evolution of his innovative approach and lasting impact on modern painting

Ed Clark remained under-acknowledged for much of his career, but he received late recognition in his lifetime, a recognition that continues to grow. A member of the New York School, Ed Clark contributed towards redefining abstraction in the 1950s with two characteristic features—the deployment of the shaped canvas, and his unconventional use of a household broom to create sweeping, gestural compositions—the show’s title coming from a quote by the artist indicating the centrality of his medium to his work. Stylistically, his work bridges the physicality and spontaneity of Abstract Expressionism with the structured clarity of hard-edged abstraction, cementing his significance in postwar painting.

Born in New Orleans in 1926 and educated in Chicago and Paris, he travelled widely throughout his career, each location, its light and palette, impacting his work. Ed Clark maintained close ties to Europe, living between New York and Paris from the 1960s onward. His aesthetic was shaped by the influence of European artists such as Nicolas de Staël and Pierre Soulages, while his artistic and intellectual circles included Joan Mitchell, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Beauford Delaney, Jack Whitten and James Baldwin, among others.

Ed Clark’s early work was figurative, exemplified in the Zurich exhibition by ‘Standing Woman at the Chair’ (1949–50), before shifting toward abstraction in the early 1950s. During his time in Paris, he explored abstract form. His painting ‘Untitled’ (1954) encapsulates this early period. Immersed in the French contemporary art scene, Ed Clark came to believe that the true essence of painting lies not in realistic representation, but in the expressive application of paint, explored for its own sake: ‘I began to believe […] that the real truth is in the stroke. For me, it is large, bold strokes that do not refer distinctly to seen nature. The paint is the subject. The motions of the strokes give the work life. This began to enter into my paintings in a very personal way.’

Back in New York, Ed Clark continued to innovate. In 1956, he began exploring shaped canvases and supports, which can be considered one of the earliest investigations within American abstract modernism, predating the shaped works of Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, Al Loving and Sam Gilliam. He later experimented with oval canvases, first conceived during a stay at Joan Mitchell’s house in Vétheuil, France, in 1968. Works on view in Zurich such as ‘Untitled’ (1970) and ‘Silver Stripes’ (1972) reflect this development, the ellipse motif and the oval support in his work aimed at expanding the field of vision, enhancing the immersive qualities of the canvas.

Ed Clark

Untitled (Acrylic #1 from the series Louisiana), 1978

Acrylic on canvas

168.9 x 233.7 x 1.9 cm / 66 1/2 x 92 x 3/4 in

Photo: Matt Grubb

© The Estate of Ed Clark

Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth

Clark’s use of the broom began in Paris and evolved significantly in New York. By the mid-1960s, he was laying his canvases on the floor and using large brooms to deliver sweeping horizontal strokes that captured speed and motion. His gestural language and ever greater emphasis on the brushstroke became central to his practice. A key highlight of the show is ‘Untitled (Acrylic #1 from the series Louisiana)’ (1978), where Ed Clark uses acrylics to capture the palette of the landscape of the Southern United States. Dividing the canvas into three sections—evoking earth, air, and water—he applied paint with broom, brush, and by hand, translating these environmental elements into abstract form. His choice of colors, ranging through pinks, blues, and beiges, deepens the specific sense of atmosphere evoking the landscape of his early childhood, and his return there to teach at Louisiana State University in the late 1970s.

Ed Clark

Untitled, ca. 1990s

Acrylic on canvas

139.1 x 179.1 cm / 54 3/4 x 70 1/2 in

Photo: Sarah Muehlbauer

© The Estate of Ed Clark

Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth

As the 1980s progressed, Ed Clark began exploring a new compositional approach he termed his tubular paintings, first seen in the series of ‘Broken Rainbow’ works. These supplanted the structures of narrow horizontal lines he employed in the previous decade, with curved strokes that introduced a suggestion of rotation as in ‘Untitled’ (ca. 1990s). In later works such as ‘Untitled’ (2002), Ed Clark continues this exploration through broad, sweeping gestures and a looser, more fluid structure that became characteristic of his later style.

The Zurich exhibition provides a rare opportunity to experience the full scope of Clark’s practice, placing him in relation to diverse histories of abstraction and highlighting the enduring relevance of his work. It emphasizes how for Ed Clark abstract art represented a greater truth than any realist depiction of the world and that for him ‘paint is the subject.’

Several works by Ed Clark are also currently on view at the Centre Pompidou in Paris as part of the exhibition ‘Paris Noir: Artistic circulations and anti-colonial resistance, 1950 – 2000’ at the Centre Pompidou (19 March – 30 June 2025), which explores the presence of black artists in France. His inclusion highlights the important African American diaspora working in Paris and the long-standing influence of Europe on his practice, situating his work within broader transatlantic narratives.

HAUSER & WIRTH ZURICH

Limmatstrasse 270, 8005 Zurich

www.hauserwirth.com

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Ed Clark 

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Beyond the Spectrum: Abstraction in African American Art, 1950-1975

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, January 11 – March 8, 2014

Surrealism and Its Legacy in the United States

Surrealism and Its Legacy in the United States

The Surrealist movement, launched with André Breton’s Manifesto of Surrealism in 1924, has undergone extensive re-evaluation in recent decades. While its origins lay in interwar Europe, contemporary scholarship emphasizes Surrealism’s transnational afterlife, including its profound yet diverse impact on U.S. art, politics, literature, and culture. This essay draws explore Surrealism’s evolving role in the American context.

Global and Multicultural Expansion of Surrealism

Recent studies have challenged the Eurocentric understanding of Surrealism by analyzing its global manifestations. The Journal of Surrealism and the Americas (2023) highlighted how Surrealism developed in Latin America alongside its reinterpretation in the United States (Caro Troncoso, 2023; Foucault, 2023). Additionally, Moretti-Langholz (2024) examined André Breton’s travels in the American Southwest, particularly his engagement with Indigenous cultures and symbols. This broadening of Surrealist scholarship reveals the movement as an evolving, inclusive mode of cultural production, not just an elite Parisian avant-garde.

Surrealism’s Remaking in the United States

Joanna Pawlik’s Remade in America (2021) offers one of the most significant contributions to understanding how Surrealism adapted within American cultural and political frameworks. Pawlik shows how postwar artists and activists repurposed Surrealist ideas to critique imperialism, racism, and capitalism. The Chicago Surrealists, the Beat poets, and feminist and Black Arts Movement figures drew on Surrealist methods to expand its political reach. Far from being an imported style, Surrealism became a flexible ideology of resistance.

From Elite to Popular: Surrealism in Mass Culture

Sandra Zalman’s Consuming Surrealism in American Culture (2017) explores how Surrealism, despite its radical origins, permeated American commercial and popular culture. Salvador Dalí’s collaborations with fashion designers, advertisers, and World’s Fair curators exemplify how Surrealist aesthetics entered the American mainstream. This commercialization of the movement blurred distinctions between avant-garde and kitsch, reshaping its cultural significance.

Artistic and Cross-Media Influence

Surrealist techniques like automatism, juxtaposition, and dream logic deeply influenced American visual culture. Artists such as Jackson Pollock and Arshile Gorky integrated Surrealist automatism into Abstract Expressionism. Photographers including Man Ray, Lee Miller, and Clarence John Laughlin extended Surrealist vision through solarization, montage, and uncanny composition (Conkelton, 1994). In cinema, Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon (1943) used dream imagery and disjointed narrative to explore psychological interiority. More recently, artists have turned to digital media to explore Surrealist aesthetics in relation to AI, climate crisis, and global anxieties.

Contemporary Re-Evaluations and Exhibitions

Major exhibitions and scholarly platforms have revisited Surrealism’s legacy through a transnational lens. The 2021–22 exhibition Surrealism Beyond Borders, co-organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Tate Modern and running from 2021 to 2022, (reviewed in the Journal of Surrealism and the Americas, 2021) questioned traditional geographic limits of the movement. This shift in curatorial and academic focus continues to decenter Paris as the epicenter and promotes recognition of marginalized Surrealist practices—from women Surrealists like Dorothea Tanning and Leonora Carrington to Indigenous and Caribbean visual traditions.

Surrealism in the United States was never merely derivative. It was transformed, hybridized, and deployed in uniquely American ways. Recent scholarship shows that Surrealism remains a living methodology, used by artists, filmmakers, and activists to explore subconscious, spiritual, and sociopolitical terrains. The transnational turn in Surrealist studies ensures that the movement continues to evolve as a global phenomenon.

References

Caro Troncoso, P. (Ed.) (2023) Surrealism and the 1960s Americas [Special issue]. Journal of Surrealism and the Americas, 14(1).

Conkelton, S. (1994). American Surrealist Photography. MoMA, 16, 20–22.

Foucault, A. (2023). Surrealist Utopias and the Cuban Revolution. Journal of Surrealism and the Americas, 14(1), 6–26.

Moretti-Langholz, D. (2024). Looking beyond himself: André Breton in the American Southwest. Journal of Surrealism and the Americas, 14(2).

Pawlik, J. (2021). Remade in America: Surrealist Art, Activism, and Politics, 1940–1978. University of California Press.

Zalman, S. (2017). Consuming Surrealism in American Culture: Dissident Modernism. Routledge.

Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 @ PMA - Philadelphia Museum of Art - A major exhibition celebrating the centenary of the Surrealist movement

Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100

Philadelphia Museum of Art

November 8, 2025 – February 16, 2026

Giorgio de Chirico (Italian, born Greece, 1888–1978) 

The Soothsayer's Recompense, 1913 

Oil on canvas, 53 3/8 × 70 7/8 inches (135.6 × 180 cm) 

Philadelphia Museum of Art: 

The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950, 1950-134-38

André Masson (French, 1896–1987)

The Landscape of Wonders, 1935 

Oil on canvas, 30 1/8 × 25 3/4 inches (76.5 × 65.4 cm) 

Soloman R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 

Bequest, Richard S. Zeisler, 2007, 2007.44

Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904–1989) 

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans, 

(Premonition of Civil War), 1936 

Oil on canvas, 39 5/16 x 39 3/8 inches (99.9 x 100 cm) 

Philadelphia Museum of Art: 

The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950, 1950-134-41

Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904–1989) 

Aphrodisiac Telephone, 1938 

Plastic and metal, 

8 1/4 × 12 1/4 × 6 1/2 inches (21 × 31.1 × 16.5 cm) 

Lent by the Minneapolis Institute of Art, 

The William Hood Dunwoody Fund, 96.2 

The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) presents Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100, a major exhibition celebrating the centenary of the Surrealist movement. As the final stop in an ambitious  tour organized with the Centre Pompidou in Paris—and the sole venue in the United States—the PMA will tell the story of Surrealist art, spotlighting the makers who sought out new expressive forms to expand the reach of the creative imagination.

The five touring partners are: the Centre Pompidou (Paris), the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium (Brussels), the Fundación MAPFRE (Madrid), the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg), and the PMA. Each  venue was tasked with presenting a distinct story of Surrealism relevant to their own histories and collections. At the PMA, Dreamworld will provide a chronological installation arranged through six thematic sections, including one, unique to Philadelphia, that focuses on artists who fled from Europe to Mexico and the U.S. during World War II.

In his 1924 Manifesto of Surrealism, poet and artist André Breton addressed what he saw as a crisis of consciousness: at around twenty years of age, he said, humans discard their childlike imaginations to adopt adult sense, decorum, and judgement. Breton believed that the only legitimate aspiration is to obtain a state of freedom, achievable solely by reharnessing the imagination. Surrealism, the movement in literature and art that Breton codified with his manifesto, would continually seek new techniques for exploring the human capacity for astonishment.

The first self-described Surrealists working in Paris rejected the representation of objective reality in art as antithetical to a truer, higher beauty, and instead, sought to produce images with a dreamlike character. The first section of this exhibition, “Waking Dream,” traces the development of Surrealist imagery and experimental techniques across mediums in the 1920s, from the found-object constructions of Man Ray and the collages of Max Ernst to hallucinatory canvases by Giorgio de Chirico, René Magritte, and Salvador Dalí.

Jean (Hans) Arp (French, born Germany [Alsace], 1886–1966) 

Growth, modeled 1938; cast by 1949 

Bronze, 31 1/4 × 12 1/2 × 7 3/8 inches (79.4 × 31.8 × 18.7 cm) 

Philadelphia Museum of Art: 

Gift of Curt Valentin, 1950, 1950-78-1

Roberto Matta (Chilean, 1911–2002) 

Morphology (Fantasy Landscape), c. 1939 

Oil on canvas, 12 × 16 1/8 inches (30.5 × 41 cm)

Collection of Andrew S. Teufel

Dorothea Tanning (American, 1910–2012) 

Birthday, 1942 

Oil on canvas, 40 1/4 × 25 1/2 inches (102.2 × 64.8 cm)

Philadelphia Museum of Art: 125th Anniversary Acquisition. 

Purchased with funds contributed 

by C. K. Williams, II, 1999, 1999-50-1

Dreamworld will then journey through sections exploring the themes of “Natural History” and “Desire.” Capturing a sense of wonder in nature was crucial for the development of Surrealist sensibility. Visitors will encounter enigmatic landscapes and fantastic creatures; torn-paper collages by Hans Arp will be displayed alongside Paul Klee’s vibrant painting Fish Magic (1925), the disorienting photographic landscapes by Lee Miller, and Joseph Cornell’s boxes containing found objects. Nearby, works by Hans Bellmer, Claude Cahun, André Kertész, and others will demonstrate the powerful ways in which photography served the Surrealist interest in eros, or desire, and the reinvention of the erotic body.

A through line of the exhibition is the use of mythology to convey the Surrealist world view. A section titled “Premonition of War” features images of monsters and creatures of strange and terrifying shape, which artists such as Dalí, Ernst, André Masson, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso used to respond to the devastating rise of totalitarianism and war in Europe in the 1930s.

With the outbreak of World War II, many Surrealists working in France left for North America, taking refuge in Caribbean ports, Mexico, and the United States. This is the focus of a section unique to the PMA, entitled “Exiles.” This section features treasured paintings in the PMA’s collection in addition to major loans such as Frida Kahlo's My Grandparents, My Parents, and I (Family Tree) (1936). In New York, Surrealism’s wartime capital, younger artists developed innovative forms of painting in tune with Surrealist methods. Highlights here will include Jackson Pollock’s Male and Female (1942–1943) and Mark Rothko’s Gyrations on Four Planes (1944).

The exhibition’s concluding section, “Magic Art,” focuses on a new type of esotericism that emerged within Surrealism in the aftermath of World War II. Filled with imagery of magical and alchemical beings, celestial figures, and symbols of the occult, this section will feature Leonora Carrington’s The Pleasures of Dagobert (1945), which materializes the magical, metamorphic imaginings of an early-medieval French monarch, and Remedios Varo’s Creation of the Birds (1957), in which an owl-headed painter uses starlight to bring a painted bird to life.

Remedios Varo (Spanish, 1908–1963) 

Icon, 1945

Oil with mother-of-pearl and gold leaf inlays on wood 

Closed: 23 5/8 × 15 7/16 × 2 1/8 inches 

(60 × 39.2 × 5 .4 cm) 

Open: 23 5/8 × 27 9/16 × 2 1/8 inches 

(60 × 70 × 5.4 cm) 

Colección Malba, 

Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, 1997.02

Illustrated by Arshile Gorky (American, born Van Province, 

Ottoman Empire [present-day Turkey], c. 1904–1948) 

Text by André Breton (French, 1896–1966), 

Dust jacket and cover designed by Marcel Duchamp 

(American, born France, 1887–1968), 

Cover of Young Cherry Trees Secured Against Hares, 1946 

Hardbound book with paper cover design by Marcel Duchamp

Book: 9 3/8 x 6 3/8 inches (23.8 x 16.2 cm)

Philadelphia Museum of Art: 

Gift of an anonymous donor, 1988, 1988-8-2

Victor Brauner (Romanian, 1903–1966) 

The Lovers (Messengers of the Number), February, 1947 

Oil on canvas, 36 1/4 × 28 3/4 inches (92 × 73 cm) 

Centre Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris: 

Bequest of Mme Jacqueline Victor Brauner, 1986, AM 1987-1204

Joseph Cornell (American, 1903–1972) 

Untitled (Constellation), c. 1958 

Box construction: wood, metal, cut paper, glass and found objects, 

13 × 19 3/8 × 4 1/4 inches (33 × 49.2 × 10.8 cm) 

Philadelphia Museum of Art: 

Gift of Josephine Albarelli, 2015, 2015-144-5

“Surrealist art has been a focus of our museum since receiving the generous gifts of the Louise and Walter Arensberg collection in 1950 and the bequest of the Albert E. Gallatin collection in 1952,” said Matthew Affron, the museum’s Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art. “Today, our permanent collection features outstanding works by a range of artists associated with Surrealism, including Giorgio de Chirico, Joan Miró, René Magritte, Jean Arp, Salvador Dalí, and Dorothea Tanning. As the main repository of works by Marcel Duchamp, one of Surrealism’s most influential guiding spirits, the PMA is very proud to build on this monumental exhibition and present it to audiences in the U.S.”

“The PMA has an extraordinary collection of modern art, and through this exhibition, we can offer our visitors a new perspective on Surrealism and showcase the strength of our own collection,” said Sasha Suda, the George D. Widener Director and CEO. “I can’t think of a more perfect way to celebrate 100 years of Surrealism.”

In Philadelphia, Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100 is curated by Matthew Affron, the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art, with Danielle Cooke, Exhibition Assistant. It will be accompanied by an illustrated publication by Matthew Affron, detailing the the key motivations, principles, themes, and techniques of Surrealist art from the early 1920s to the late 1950s.

PMA - PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART

2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19130

philamuseum.org

Related Posts on this blogzine:

Surrealism and Its Legacy in the United States (Essay, June 2025)

Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes

The Hepworth Wakefield, 23 November 2024 – 27 April 2025

Out of this World: Surreal & Fantastic Art in Photography

Keith de Lellis Gallery, New York, October 3 – November 15, 2024

Mona Kuhn: Between Modernism and Surrealism 

Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York, 4 April - 25 May 2024

Surrealism Beyond Borders

Tate Modern, London, 24 February 2022 – 29 August 2022

Surrealism and the dream

Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 8 October 2013 - 12 January 2014

Dali. All of the poetic suggestions and all of the plastic possibilities

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, April 27 - September 2, 2013

Marcel Duchamp on Display: Optics, Exhibition Installations, Portable Museums

Zabriskie Gallery, New York, March 22 - May 5, 2001

Dreaming with Open Eyes

Israel Museum, Jerusalem, December 22, 2000 - June 2001

Arshile Gorky: The Breakthrough Years 

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth , January 14 - March 17, 1996 

KAWS: FAMILY @ SFMOMA, San Francisco - San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

KAWS: FAMILY

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

November 15, 2025 – Spring 2026

KAWS, FAMILY, 2021

Private collection

© KAWS

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) announces KAWS: FAMILY, a dazzling exploration of the multidimensional work of American artist KAWS. Beginning his career as a graffiti artist in Jersey City and Manhattan in the 1990s, KAWS has become renowned in the art world and beyond for his work in sculpture, painting, drawing, product design, large-scale public works and augmented reality. KAWS’s multidisciplinary practice is frequently centered around a cast of characters whose features are drawn from icons of American animation and pop culture. Recasting and reimagining his distinctive and relatable artistic lexicon, KAWS produces meticulous and exuberant works that investigate our connection to objects and one another. Organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), KAWS: FAMILY will conclude its popular international tour at SFMOMA from November 15, 2025, to Spring 2026.

Featuring more than 100 artworks from the past three decades, the exhibition is organized as a series of encounters, with families of related artworks installed throughout SFMOMA’s Floor 4, including sculptures, bold and vibrant paintings, product collaborations and collectibles.

“KAWS has a distinct appeal to a vast array of audiences with his iconic characters and meticulous work in a stunning range of mediums,” said Christopher Bedford, Helen and Charles Schwab Director of SFMOMA. “The playful and contemplative works—a dynamic blend of his street art practice and formal education—will offer something for everyone when the exhibition opens at SFMOMA this fall.”

After spending his teenage years painting graffiti in the streets of Jersey City and Manhattan, KAWS eventually enrolled in the School of Visual Arts (SVA) where he received his BFA in illustration in 1996. Since that time, the artist has carved a unique position for himself in the art world, creating a globally recognized practice rooted in drawing, painting and sculpture, and amplified through collaborations with global fashion and design brands.

Working in bronze, wood, on paper and canvas, with vinyl toys and commercial products, KAWS’s art is populated by a cast of recurring figures inspired by his early practice of altering phone booth and bus shelter advertisements with his unique visual language. Originally painting his trademark skull and crossbones over the faces of models, he applied the same concept to altering iconic mascots and characters within the cultural zeitgeist. These figures are at once playful and serious, and in their various poses, forms and sizes, explore distinctly human emotions ranging from loneliness and anxiety to grief and joy. The exhibition takes its title and thematic jumping-off point from the work FAMILY (2021), a bronze sculpture featuring three recurring characters in KAWS’s work. The grouping includes a figure with crossed out eyes inspired by early American rubber hose animations named COMPANION; a bulbous figure named CHUM; and a fur-covered character named BFF—posed together in the style of a studio portrait.

Alongside sculptures, drawings and paintings, a selection of shoe designs, cereal boxes, album covers and a loveseat composed of plush toys made in collaboration with Brazilian design studio Estúdio Campana help showcase KAWS’s ongoing engagement with design and fashion brands and commitment to his work being widely accessible. These commercial works share the same dedication to bold color and strong lines seen in the artist’s paintings and sculptures and have helped KAWS gain a large and dedicated global following.

ARTIST KAWS

KAWS (Brian Donnelly) was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1974. Over the last three decades he has built a successful career with work that consistently shows his formal agility as an artist, as well as his underlying wit, irreverence and affection for the current cultural moment. His practice possesses a sophisticated humor and thoughtful interplay with consumer products and collaborations with global brands, ranging from General Mills and Nike, to Supreme and Comme de Garçons. He often draws inspiration from and appropriates pop culture animations to form a unique artistic vocabulary for his work across a variety of media.

KAWS has exhibited extensively throughout the United States and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions of his work have been presented at institutions such as Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; The Parrish Art Museum, Watermill, New York; The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; the Serpentine Gallery, London, UK; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; Fire Station, Qatar Museums, Doha; Mori Arts Center Gallery, Tokyo; the Yuz Museum, Shanghai; and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas. He is represented by Skarstedt Gallery and Galerie Max Hetzler.

CATALOGUE: KAWS: FAMILY is accompanied by a 156-page, fully illustrated hardcover catalogue co-published by the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and Delmonico Books. Featuring an essay by Julian Cox, AGO deputy director and chief curator, and an interview with KAWS by Jim Shedden, AGO curator of special projects and director of publishing, the publication is available in person at the SFMOMA Museum Store or at museumstore.sfmoma.org.

KAWS: FAMILY is organized by the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and curated by Julian Cox, deputy director & chief curator, AGO. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) presentation is curated by William Hernández Luege, curatorial associate, painting and sculpture, SFMOMA; and Daryl McCurdy, curatorial associate, architecture and design, SFMOMA.

SFMOMA - SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

151 Third Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 

www.sfmoma.org