Beneath the Stone

What new realities arise today in the desire to challenge and transform society, conventions, and the limitations of the self? Surrealism calls for new languages, artistic hybrids, critical creativity, and demands that we identify and challenge the boundaries that claim our reality, but the political and aesthetic conventions that surrealism wants to shed and transgress are different now than they were a hundred years ago. The desire to move beyond the limitations of reality, to allow it to explode and expand, is motivated by other forces. In the gaps that arise between artificial intelligence and human bodies. In a transformed view of our role in ecological systems where we are no longer the sole conquerors but are tightly interconnected with other species and organisms. In queer, postcolonial, and anti-racist resistance movements. To name only a few. The development of society has blazed a trail for new forms, methods, and creative spaces where surrealism’s quest through the labyrinths of the subconscious, the crossing of boundaries, and what lies beyond reality is actualized.

Muhammad Ali’s mural painting Beneath the stone follows some of these threads and examine the influence surrealism has on our contemporary moment.  

You can read more about the residency and the artists and activities it included on the residency page.