J A N U A R Y   2 9 – M A Y   9,   2 0 1 0

Paris was a city of fantasy and chance encounters for Surrealist artists of the 1920s and '30s. During this period of unprecedented social and cultural transformation, photography played a dramatic new role in both avant-garde practice and mass culture. In their works, photographers such as Jacques-André Boiffard, Brassaï, Ilse Bing, André Kertész, Germaine Krull, Dora Maar, and Man Ray used fragmentation, montage, unusual viewpoints, and various technical manipulations to expose the disjunctive and uncanny aspects of modern urban life. In Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography, and Paris, guest curator Terry Lichtenstein has assembled over 150 photographs, films, books, periodicals, and Surrealist ephemera to show how real and imaginary versions of Paris were constructed through photographic images.

Enlarge image
Ilse Bing,
Eiffel Tower, 1934
© Estate of Ilse Bing/
Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York
Courtesy Galerie Karsten Greve AG,
St. Moritz, Switzerland

UPCOMING EVENT

Seeing Strange: Surrealist Photographers/Texts in Dark and Light
May 5 | Wednesday | 7:00pm
$5/Free for ICP Members

IN THE NEWS

"Once Shocking, Now Poetic,"
The New York Times