Until next May 2, and curated by Martina Mazzota and Jürgen Pech, the Círculo de Bellas Artes de Madrid presents in its Sala Picasso the exhibition Max Ernst. Surrealism. Art and cinema.
This exhibition offers a unique journey through the life and career of Max Ernst, combining the presence of pieces in different media: paintings, sculptures, collages, frottages, illustrated books, photographs, all selected for their connections with the seventh art. An innovative and unprecedented approach to the work of the famous German surrealist artist.
Max Ernst (1891-1976): painter, sculptor, draughtsman, graphic artist and poet. Or even: Max Ernst dadaist, surrealist, romantic, patauphysical and humanist. Today, his life and work seem kaleidoscopic, extremely multifaceted and at the same time inimitable. For the first time, and through a specific research, the exhibition Max Ernst: Surrealism, Art and Cinema presents the artist’s life and work in relation to the cinematographic medium. Indeed, «the Seventh Art» represents a parallel and ever present route in the life and career of the artist.
In 1921, André Breton compared Max Ernst’s collages to cinema and described the unique way in which his works helped overcome traditional, two-dimensional media (painting and drawing) that remained frozen in stillness. He also described the artist as a magician, «the man of these infinite possibilities», and stressed that «Ernst projects before our eyes the most captivating film in the world».
Relations with cinema have always accompanied Ernst’s activity: his work has massively inspired surrealist cinema, together with directors and artists from later years to the present; he himself has been an actor, He is also a member of film juries and the designer of film awards; finally, his life has become the subject of numerous films and documentaries, revealing a constant and mutual exchange between his artistic practice and cinema. Tickets for the exhibition can be purchased at this link.
