Les Mystères de la chambre noire: Photographic Surrealism, 1920 – 1950 - Ubu Gallery

Les Mystères de la chambre noire: Photographic Surrealism, 1920 – 1950

June 5, 2017 - September 29, 2017

Ubu Gallery presented an exhibition of photographic images by thirty-three experimental artists who worked with surrealist methods. Utilizing manipulative techniques, including photomontage, multiple exposures, sandwiched negatives, brülage, photograms and the disarming juxtaposition of disparate images, these artists created unsettling realities. The artists embraced photography as a “disruptive” medium in the 20th century in part because of the credibility of photography: the idea that “the camera does not lie” lent itself to challenging our assumptions about reality.

ARTISTS
Hans Bellmer, Denise Bellon, Victor Brauner, Vane Bor, James Hamilton Brown, Janusz Maria Brzeski, Claude Cahun, René Clair, Robert Disraeli, Jimmy Ernst, Max Ernst, Victor Guidalevitch, David Hare, Artür Harfaux, Harold Leroy Harvey, Raoul Hausmann, Jindřich Heisler, Georges Hugnet, Pierre Jahan, Humphrey Jennings, Edmund Kesting, Miloš Koreček, Jerzy Kujawski, Nathan Lerner, Marcel Mariën, Jean Mowat, Gaston Paris, Man Ray, Jindřich Štyrský, Soichi Sunami, Val Telberg, Stefan Themerson, Raoul Ubac, Wols

RESOURCES
Exhibition checklist
Images of all 63 works from Photographic Surrealism

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS AVAILABLE FROM THE UBU GALLERY SHOP
L’Amour Fou: Photography & Surrealism
Georges Hugnet: The Love Life of the Spumifers
Georges Hugnet: The Love Life of the Spumifers (deluxe pink edition)
The Themersons and the Gaberbocchus Press: An Experiment in Publishing, 1948-1979
33 Koláží: Breton, Eluard, Muzard
Jindřich Štyrský: Emilie Comes to Me in a Dream
Hans Bellmer – Louise Bourgeois: Double Sexus
Octopus Time: Bellmer Painting
Behind The Surrealist Curtain: Sex, Sensuality & Silence
The Colour of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art

SELECTED WORKS FROM THE EXHIBITION

Founded in 1994, Ubu Gallery has presented almost 100 exhibitions of 20th Century avant-garde art, with an emphasis on the inter-war period of the 1920s-1930s, particularly the Dada, Surrealist, and Constructivist movements. Ubu exhibits paintings, drawings, photography, sculpture, and ephemera (books, posters, graphic design, etc.) and, wherever possible, highlights the interrelationships among these art forms.

Ubu Gallery is a well-known presence on the international cultural scene and enjoys a worldwide reputation for its serious explorations of areas covered by few other galleries, including acclaimed survey exhibitions of Polish, Romanian and Czech avant-garde art. Ubu’s focus on the avant-garde, particularly on historically important artists and movements that have not received appropriate attention, has earned the gallery frequent reviews in press throughout the world focused on the visual arts. Ubu participates in the most important Parisian art fair, FIAC, held annually in the Grand Palais (2010-2016), and has participated significantly in Art Basel (2003–2011) and the encyclopedic Frieze Masters fair (2012–2015) showcasing the best of antiquities to modern art, in Regent's Park in London.