Surrealism at the Vancouver Art Gallery

posted in: Canada, Travel 0
The Art Gallery Crew
The VAG
Had much fun on Tuesday. Met my friend Ritch at the Vancouver Art Gallery. A surrealism showing. Ritch and I have been friends since we were teenagers. His real name is Rob but to me and my family, he’ll always be Ritchie 🙂 He never ages, even though it’s been a few years since our last meeting, I recognized him instantly from a bench inside the VAG lobby. I love surrealism–anything goes. So inspirational and mind expanding.The surrealists of the early 20th C were heavily influenced by West Coast Aboriginal art. Also interesting is that the VAG was the first art gallery in the world to show Aboriginal Art as art rather than craft in 1955.

 It was a pleasure viewing Dali’s work again. I feel a special link to Dali after being in Spain this summer and experiencing so much of his work. I also saw some of Leonora Carrington’s work–she only recently died this past year–one of only a few female artists surrealist work displayed.
 I must say that it is a shame that our surrealist history is dominated by male artists. Because, the truth is, this was a time in European history, when feminine sexuality was finally just beginning to emerge as existing. Thus, the male surrealist artists were really at a loss as to how to express this in their works. They really should have left it for the women artists to express. Women’s sexuality is perverted by the male surrealists. I think what will truly be interesting is to see how Western women artists express feminine sexuality in this century.

BTW: what does it mean when a man continually smiles at you and then double raises his eyebrows at you Groucho Marx style? I kept ending up in the same viewing room at the art gallery as this stranger–a male. Each time we acknowledged each other’s presence with a friendly smile–until after several floors of viewing his smile was accompanied by a double eyebrow lift? A true surreal experience while    at the gallery.

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