Contemporary Surrealism: Not All Doors Are The Same, Booth Gallery

24.1.20

Contemporary Surrealism: Not All Doors Are The Same, Booth Gallery | Exhibition Archive 2020#3

Max Ernst, All Doors Are Alike

Exhibition Archive 2020#3

Not All Doors Are The Same at Booth Gallery

Along with the Philadelphia Museum of Art Surrealism Room Collection (visited 11. 27. 2019)

“Not All Doors Are The Same” is a survey of Contemporary Surrealism curated by Michael J Ruple and Rob Zeller. The exhibition was on view at the Booth Gallery in NYC from November 9th to December 7th.

If you haven't read Berton's writing about surrealism I recommend to have a look because he is the co-founder, leader, principal theorist and chief apologist of Surrealism. You can find the PDF on internet. André Breton was in Dada movement that was developed in reaction to the World War I. Surealism is developed out of Dada movement.

Manifesto Of Surrealism by ANDRÉ BRETON
Manifeste du surréalisme

A Group photograph of Dada artists, 1920, Paris.
ANDRÉ BRETON os on the front row, bottom right.
From left to right, Back row: Louis Aragon, Theodore Fraenkel, Paul Eluard, Clément Pansaers, Emmanuel Fay (cut off). Second row: Paul Dermée, Philippe Soupault, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes. Front row: Tristan Tzara (with monocle), Celine Arnauld, Francis Picabia, André Breton.

Wall Texts from Philadelphia Museum of Art, from their surrealism room.

Text below is an answer by one of the two curators of the exhibition, Robert Zeller, in response to my question about exhibition title and the idea behind the show.

"To answer your question about the title of Not All Doors Are The Same: It comes from a collaged etching/print by Max Ernst from his book The Hundred Headless Women. His print was titled All Doors Are Alike. (Image above)

I wanted to do a play on that title because the Surrealists were very much about absurdism and opposites, or The Other, as it is sometimes called. I wanted to say that the many avenues of Surrealism have gone in vastly different directions over the last 100 years. That is how (and why) I came up with the title of the exhibition. I believe that Surrealism is still highly relevant as a concept, but that contemporary Surrealism is very different in kind from its foundational group of artists with Andre Breton in France, circa 1915-16. There are still some parallels, though." -Robert Zeller

The first half of images below are from Booth Gallery exhibition, second half is images from The Philadelphia Museum of Art.