The Milk of dreams, the title of the 59th edition of Biennale of Art Venezia 2022 curated by Cecilia Alemani, is also the title of a book written by Leonora Carrington (1917-2011), the surrealist artist.
In this book, with pictures made by the artist, the persons and the creatures can change and become something different. (here are these creatures strange and a little scaring born from the imagination of Leonora Carrington :Senorita Gomez Castillo- The monkey in the forest, The monster of Chihauhua: it has six legs, a golden jewel and pearls, Senor Mustache-Mustache, The girl who eat spider…brr).
Leonora Carrington did paintings and designs for her children in Mexico, where she lived the most of her life. She wrote tales and painted the wall of her house with big pictures of wondrous creatures. Some of these designs were made on little notebook, that Leonora Carrington called The milk of dreams.
The book of Leonora Carrington was the occasion for the curator to talk about the body transformation, the metamorphosis of the body and the definition of the human. Cecilia Alemani had many conversations with the artists about how is the definition of human change, which are the differences between human, non-human. How will be the world without us. These are just some topics of this Biennale of Venice 2022, that have an interesting and long list of artists invited (213) coming from 56 nations, with a majority of female artists.There will be 31 official collateral events in the city.
Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst were also two of the protagonists of the exhibition Surrealism and magics: Enchanted Modernity, hosted at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice.
Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst
Leonora Carrington met the surrealist painter Max Ernst in 1937, she was twenty and he was twenty-six years older and was already married. Despite this, they fell in love, and lived two years together in Paris. Leonora told that she fell in love with Max Ernst’s paintings before she fell in love with the artist,
In 1939 France declared war to German and Max Ernst, who was German, but against the nazism, was imprisoned twice in a concentration champ. After one year, they escaped to Spain, but Leonora had a breakdown and ended up in a psychiatric clinic.
Thereafter, Leonora resolved to marry a Mexican diplomat, a decision that proved instrumental in her recovery. Concurrently, Max Ernst entered into a relationship with Peggy Guggenheim, who would become his wife in 1942. However, the couple subsequently divorced in 1943.
In 1940 Max Ernst painted the beautiful canvas Leonora in the morning light. The girl is a lush forest in the dazzling morning light. They met again in New York, but just like friends, then she left to go to Mexico, where she lived the rest of her life and wrote also The milk of dreams.
Surrealism and exposition in 2024
Exhibitions dedicated to the Surrealist movement ‘opened’ with the Venice Biennale in 2022 and continued until 2024 when the Fondazione Magnani Rocca dedicated an exhibition to this movement, including a look at Italian Surrealism from the 1930s onwards. On display in Parma were not only the best-known protagonists such as René Magritte, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Yves Tanguy and Giorgio de Chirico, but also Italian artists such as Alberto Savinio, Enrico Baj and Fabrizio Clerici.
Changes and transformation are a constant in our life…
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Link to the Tarot in art from the surrealist to Pino Settanni.
FIORELLA PAGOTTO — I am an art historian and a writer, author of essays on art history and biographies of artists. I also deal with the history of architecture and the history of architectural restoration. I have been a guide to the city of Venice and the Veneto villas since 2012, when I passed the Veneto Region exam.
Venice, December 2024
