When the Strange Is Familiar and the Familiar Strange: Surrealism Turns 100, Observer, September 2024

The movement’s core message was and is one of championing radical freedom of thought and modern experiments in literature and visual arts.

By Farah Abdessamad • 09/11/24 8:58am

“This summer the roses are blue; the wood is of glass,” André Breton wrote in 1924. “Existence is elsewhere.” His Manifesto of Surrealism propelled a global, revolutionary art movement that defined 20th-century cultural history. Celebrating its one-hundredth anniversary this year, Surrealism continues to illuminate invisible shapes and forces through an evolving canon as well as in the works of contemporary artists reckoning with its heritage.

Surrealism in contemporary art

This anniversary is an opportunity to illuminate contemporary artists who uphold Surrealist tenets and explore invisible dream worlds, the uncanny and the occult in their works.

In her show at San Francisco’s gallery Wendi Norris, “Tiger in the Looking Glass,” which opens September 13, Brooklyn-based painter Chitra Ganesh experiments with oneiric jungle scenes, whereby night conjures day. Images of characters in lush rainforests contrast with the minimalist line work underpinning the more dreamlike visions dominated by deep blues, purples and charcoal.

“A vital aspect of surrealism’s legacy that I have always been drawn to is how this movement centers on contemplating the link between psychic and political liberation,” Ganesh told Observer, citing concerns such as climate justice and the rise of authoritarianism. “Surrealism’s impulse to render the familiar strange, contingent, or even untenable resonates more than ever, a hundred years on,” she added, explaining how her own practice draws on surrealist techniques such as collage and “automatic writing.”

Chitra Ganesh, Pond Walk, 2024, Acrylic and ink on paper, 18 x 12 inches.