Tag Archives: Salvador Dali

“Architects of the Imagination” Highlights Disney and Dalí’s Unlikely Friendship

by CaroPosted on

To the world, Salvador Dalí was an eccentric Surrealist and animation pioneer Walt Disney was a notorious dreamer. But to each other, they were fierce friends and collaborators. Although the unlikely pair grew up worlds apart, they found one another through their art, and their work together has endured long after their lifetime. The history of this remarkable friendship between two icons is explored in a new exhibition titled “Disney and Dalí: Architects of the Imagination” at The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco.

Dimitry Vorsin’s Erotic and Surrealist Drawings Echo Dali and Da Vinci

by Roxanne GoldbergPosted on

Russian artist Dimitry Vorsin creates beguiling surrealist worlds populated with mystifying and erotic characters. Drawing influence from Salvador Dali, his figures are often elongated and with decapitated limbs. For example, one arm of a woman in a running pose morphs into what appears as a rat’s tail. The other is shown in a puppet-like construction, controlled by small nymphs wearing tall spiraling headwraps that match the woman’s own grandiose headware. The sexually fraught image suggests the power of the psyche to serve as a symbolic whip.

Japanese Artist Yusk Imai Draws Surreal Arrangements of Figures

by CaroPosted on

American-born Japanese artist Yusk Imai portrays highly stylized figures drawn from his dreams and mythology. Working in his studio in Berlin, Imai creates using a variety of materials and applications including sketches, painting on canvas and wood, photography and large scale wall murals. Often drawing in monochrome, ink on paper is his favorite medium. His images have been compared to Gustav Klimt for their use of intricate patterns and symbolism.

Digital Artist Sarah DeRemer Creates Dreamy Photo Manipulations of Animals

by CaroPosted on

Born in Los Angeles and now based in Korea, artist Sarah DeRemer has gone viral with her bizarre photo manipulations of animals. Her witty creations combine animals with everything from balloons to fruits and vegetables, as in “Animal Food,” her first major series. Her next and most recent project, “Surreal Experiments” takes her concept into the surreal realm, where we find hybrid creatures in a black and white Dalí-inspired world. It is a series that inspires both dreams and nightmares. First featured on our instagram, take a look at more photos from Sarah DeRemer’s “Surreal Experiments” after the jump.

Childhood Toys Visit the Cold War in Geoffrey Gersten’s “MK-ULTRA Wars”

by CaroPosted on

The childhood toys of surrealist painter Geoffrey Gersten visit the Cold War era in his current exhibition at Copro Gallery, “MK-ULTRA Wars.” The show coincides with Anthony Ausgang’s equally whimsical exhibition “Catascopes.” Gersten takes his title and inspiration from the CIA’s mind control program “Project MKUltra,” which illegally ran drug testing from the 1950s to early 70s. The project is used as a metaphor for Gersten’s paintings, which infuse conflict into otherwise dreamy landscapes populated by candy colored characters.

On View: “Jeff Koons: A Retrospective” at Whitney Museum of American Art

by CaroPosted on

If you think of giant stainless-steel puppy balloons when you hear the name Jeff Koons, think again. On Friday, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York celebrated the most comprehensive collection of the Pop artist’s work to date. The exhibition, which will be traveling internationally into 2015, is the artist’s first retrospective spanning his highly influential career. Notably, it is also the museum’s last showing before moving to a new space to be announced next year. There are nearly 150 works total displayed chronologically, dating from late 1970s series “The Pre-New, The New, and Equilibrium” to new works like “Play-Doh”, 20 years in the making. Often described as “kitsch” for his outlandish taste, Koons’ retrospective may redefine what taste actually is. Read more after the jump!