Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration in New York

Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration

March 14–July 9, 2012

The Paul J. Sachs Drawings Galleries, third floor

Browse selected works on view

View related eventsIn a collaborative, chance-based drawing game known as the exquisite corpse, Surrealist artists subjected the human body to distortions and juxtapositions that resulted in fantastic composite figures. This exhibition considers how this and related practices—in which the body is dismembered or reassembled, swollen or multiplied, propped with prosthetics or fused with nature and the machine—have recurred in art throughout the 20th century and to the present day. Artists from André Masson and Joan Miró to Louise Bourgeois and Robert Gober to Mark Manders and Nicola Tyson have distorted and disoriented our most familiar of referents, playing out personal, cultural, or social anxieties and desires on unwitting anatomies. If art history reveals an unending impulse to render the human figure as a symbol of potential perfection and a system of primary organization, these works show that artists have just as persistently been driven to disfigure the body.

Organized by Samantha Friedman, Curatorial Assistant, with Jodi Hauptman, Curator, Department of Drawings.

Drawings Collection Exhibitions are made possible by
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Upcoming Lectures & Gallery Talks | Gallery Conversations
Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration

Monday, June 4, 2012, 11:30 a.m. Sunday, June 24, 2012, 1:30 p.m. Saturday, June 30, 2012, 1:30 p.m. Special Events | PopRallyAnagram. 2003. 12 x 21 1/2″ (30.5 x 54.6 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection Gift. © 2012 Anna Gaskell" height=80 src="http://www.moma.org/images/dynamic_content/exhibition_small_promo/68223.JPG?1337789339" width=165>

PopRally Presents: A Game of Exquisite Corpse, featuring Au Revoir Simone

"The greatest pursuit of an artist is collaboration. Especially drunken collaboration with friends."
– Eleanor Roosevelt

Inspired by the exhibition Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration, PopRally invites you to an interactive party based on the collaborative, chance-based game of Exquisite Corpse, which was embraced by artists and poets of the Surrealist circle. Enjoy drinks and music while inventing heads, bodies, and feet at drawing stations. See hilarious or monstrous figures come to life as the drawings are randomly matched up and projected live.

The three members of Brooklyn electronic pop band Au Revoir Simone will take turns DJing in the style of Exquisite Corpse; each will pick up where the other left off, creating a spontaneous musical hybrid.

Guests will also enjoy exclusive access to the Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration exhibition, where MoMA educators will be stationed throughout the gallery to guide you through the show. This exhibition brings together more than 100 works from the collection in which the body is dismembered or reassembled, swollen or multiplied, propped with prosthetics or fused with nature and the machine. Artists including André Masson, Joan Miró, Louise Bourgeois, Robert Gober, Mark Manders, and Nicola Tyson have distorted and disoriented our most familiar of referents, playing out personal, cultural, or social anxieties and desires on unwitting anatomies.

Doors open at 8:00 p.m. Admission includes tours, drawing, music, and drinks.

PopRally is supported in part by The Friends of Education of The Museum of Modern Art.

Special thanks to Sud de France Wines. Beer for this event has been provided by Brooklyn Brewery.

Sunday, July 1, 2012, 8:00 p.m.
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Past Lectures & Gallery Talks | Gallery Conversations
Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration

Saturday, April 7, 2012, 1:30 p.m. Thursday, April 12, 2012, 1:30 p.m. Lectures & Gallery Talks | Gallery Conversations
Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration

Saturday, June 2, 2012, 11:30 a.m. She Could Hardly Wait. 1996. Oil and ink on cut-and-pasted printed paper, 27 x 27 1/2" (68.6 x 69.9 cm). The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection Gift. © 2012 Steve Gianakos" id="placeholder" src="http://www.moma.org/images/dynamic_content/exhibition_page/59226.jpg?1328799305">

Steve Gianakos. She Could Hardly Wait. 1996. Oil and ink on cut-and-pasted printed paper, 27 x 27 1/2" (68.6 x 69.9 cm). The Judith Rothschild Foundation Contemporary Drawings Collection Gift. © 2012 Steve Gianakos

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