Max Ernst. An Ornithologist’s Dreams

Max Ernst (1891-1976), one of the best known artists of Surrealism, claimed he hatched from a bird’s egg, and this belief was reflected in his work. We will gain an insight into the artist’s extraordinary imagination with the exhibition at the International Cultural Centre. The curator Dr. Monika Rydygier chose Ernst’s conviction of his avian lineage as the starting point for the exhibition.

The bird motif was present in the artist’s work from his early Dadaist creations via Surrealist collages, collage-novels, paintings and sculptures to later allusive abstractions. In 1928, Ernst painted Loplop, Superior of Birds, and ever since the birdlike creature became his alter ego, taking on a range of different forms. The artist’s fascination with birds is also a pretext to showcase his experiments with new techniques distinctive of 20th-century artistic trends.

The exhibition has been prepared jointly with the Max Ernst Museum Brühl des LVR in his home town; we will see prints, paintings, written works and sculptures, as well as archive photos, letters and texts illustrating the author’s creative development and turbulent life. (Dorota Dziunikowska, “Karnet” monthly)