Exquisite Corpse

Description

The so-called cadavre exquis or exquisite corpse, a Surrealist visual game, was created in winter 1925–26, when members of the group gathered in the evenings. If conversation lagged, they invented games to spark the unconscious. The exquisite corpse grew out of one such invention, which reimagined the children’s game of “head, body, legs,” in which each participant adds to a drawing without seeing the preceding contributions, which are hidden by folding the paper. The results are strange, sometimes violent, combinations of images. The Surrealists produced many such drawings (the Art Institute has several; for example, 2018.333, 2018.334, and 2018.335), and these collaborative experiments were profoundly influential. The Chicago-based Hairy Who artists also played the game in the late 1960s, but with more playful results (for example, 2018.684, 2018.685, 2018.686, 2018.687, 2018.688, and 2018.689).

Provenance

André Breton, Paris [inscription]. Sold by Galerie Furstenberg (Simone Collinet), Paris, to Lindy and Edwin Bergman, Chicago, 1961; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2018.

Exquisite Corpse

André Masson

March 18, 1927

Accession Number

119116

Medium

Graphite and colored crayons on ivory wove paper

Dimensions

20 × 15.5 cm (7 7/8 × 6 1/8 in.)

Classification

graphite

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Lindy and Edwin Bergman Collection