Twilight visions

 Twilight Visions explores the city of Paris as the literal and metaphoric base of Surrealism, and examines the revolutionary social, cultural, aesthetic, and political activities and meanings of the movement during the 1920s and 30s. Over 100 works—mainly vintage photographs but also including films, books, and period ephemera—have been selected for their power to suggest the mystery and wonder in the chance encounters experienced by Surrealist writers and artists as they wandered through the labyrinthine streets of Paris.

Artists such as Brassaï (1899-1984), André Kertész (1894-1985), Ilse Bing (1899-1998), Man Ray (1890-1976), and Germaine Krull (1897-1985) photographed the monuments, cafés, dance halls, and streets of Paris as if they were "found objects." Their psychologically charged photographs reveal the hidden secrets of these commonplace things, exposing the marvelous in the everyday. While some photographs incorporate innovative lighting techniques and unusual camera angles in a documentary style, others show various technical manipulations to disclose the disjunctive character of modern life in Paris.

Although there was no official organization of Surrealist photographers, many of the artists included in this exhibition published their work in the Surrealist journals La Revolution surréaliste, Le Surréalisme au service de la revolution, Documents, and Minotaure. Whether portraying the Eiffel Tower or a disturbingly distorted image of the female body, these artists reveled in paradoxes and contradictions, inspiring a revolutionary consciousness whereby memory, imagination, and reality became indistinguishable.