The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States, on view January 29 – May 6, 2012.
Frida Kahlo, Autorretrato con collar de espinas y colibrí (Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird), 1940, © 2011 Banco de México Diego Rivera Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, photo courtesy Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin
Co-organized by LACMA and the Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM) in Mexico City, In Wonderland is the first large-scale international survey of women surrealist artists in North America. Past surveys of surrealism have either largely excluded female artists or minimized their contributions. This landmark exhibition highlights the significant role of women surrealists who were active in these two countries, and the effects of geography and gender on the movement. Spanning more than four decades, In Wonderland features approximately 175 works by forty-seven extraordinary artists, including Frida Kahlo, Lee Miller, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Dorothea Tanning, Louise Bourgeois, and more.
“In many respects these surrealists were similar to Lewis Carroll’s central character—Alice—in his famous nonsensical novels. Their creativity was often stifled or marginalized by what seemed to be a somewhat arbitrary and bizarre world where logic did not always reign,” notes Ilene Fort, exhibition curator and LACMA curator of American art. “This expansive survey illustrates that North America offered these women a degree of independence they could not experience in Europe. Hence it became for them a land of reinvention, their wonderland.”
The exhibition is co-curated by Dr. Ilene Susan Fort, LACMA’s Gail and John Liebes Curator of American Art, and Tere Arcq, MAM’s Adjunct Curator. After premiering at LACMA, In Wonderland travels to the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (MNBAQ) (June 7–September 3, 2012), and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City (September 27, 2012–January 13, 2013).
About LACMA
Since its inception in 1965, LACMA has been devoted to collecting works of art that span both history and geography and represent Los Angeles’s uniquely diverse population. Today, the museum features particularly strong collections of Asian, Latin American, European, and American art, as well as a contemporary museum on its campus. With this expanded space for contemporary art, innovative collaborations with artists, and an ongoing Transformation project, LACMA is creating a truly modern lens through which to view its rich encyclopedic collection.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
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