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Exhibit
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Arts on Grand “International Surrealism” brings the work of 17 artists from around the world together under the art movement known as Surrealism. Arts on Grand invites the public to the opening artist reception for this exhibit on Friday, August 18th from 5:00 – 7:00 pm. “Appreciating Surrealism” will be the topic of a Panel Discussion at 6:00 PM featuring artists from the East Coast, West Coast and America’s Heartland.
Participating Artists: Pablo Weisz-Carrington, Mexico – painting Bernard Dumaine, France – digital art including three signed and numbered prints Zazie, Austria - digital art including two signed and numbered prints Craig Blair, Ohio – oil paintings James Sebor, New York – paintings Helmuth Goede, Denmark – collage Lady Hannah Cadaver, Australia – digital art Xtian, Australia – digital art and collage Bruce Brodie, Ohio – paintings Tibor Kovacs-egri, Hungary – digital art Daniel Boyer, Michigan – mixed media Willem den Broeder, the Netherlands – painting Richard Burke, Missouri – photography Susan Burke, Missouri – small sculpture and jewelry Andrew Torch, Missouri – painting and sculpture Derek Scefonas, Colorado – digital art Richard Dotson, Oregon – digital art. The Surrealism movement was started in the 1920s by a small group of poets and writers in Paris who believed that it provided a means of reuniting conscious and unconscious thought so completely, that the world of dream and fantasy would be combined with the everyday rational world in an “absolute reality, or a surreality”. The early Surrealists felt that unconscious thought, uninhibited by the restrictions of conscious thought, was “pure thought”. The movement gained energy after they were joined by a number of visual artists including Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Joan Miro, and others. While the movement never became very popular among the general public, the Surrealists did attract a fair amount of attention during the next two decades. The original Surrealist group was located in Paris, but other groups soon sprang up in other cities and eventually across the Atlantic in New York City. The movement was gaining a slow but steady momentum until 1939. The Nazi invasion of Western Europe scattered the Surrealists. Most of them fled to the United States. Max Ernst was imprisoned by the French as a German national. Leonora Carrington escaped to Spain, then to New York City and eventually to Mexico City (where she still lives today). World War II seemed to be the death knoll for the movement. It was never able to gain the same momentum after the war that it had before and seemed destined to just fade away with the aging and dying of its founding members. But something has happened in the last decade to breathe new life into the movement! Over the past fifteen years the number of people connected to the Internet has grown tremendously. The result of this phenomenon has been the ability of like-minded individuals to find others like themselves all over the world. It is in this way that a growing number of second-and third-generation) Surrealists have been able to find each other and link up, sharing thoughts, ideas and even collaborating on works sent electronically. The last decade has brought new life into the movement through Internet connections that enable like-minded artists to link up, share thoughts, ideas, and even collaborate on works. A related development that has breathed new life into the movement has been the advance of digital computer art. While it is still viewed by most people as a graphic art medium, many Surrealists have begun using digital art as their preferred method of creation, turning it into a fine art medium. This exhibit is sponsored locally by Northwest Federal, and in part by support from the Iowa Arts Council, a department within the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs.
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