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Dreamland: American Explorations into Surrealism

At Sullivan Goss, An American Gallery. Shows through March 25.

Reviewed by Beth Taylor-Schott

Dreamland: American Explorations into Surrealism, which had its opening reception on Saturday, January 20, at Sullivan Goss in Santa Barbara, includes enough great art for two excellent shows, and yet still manages to be more than the sum of those two parts. A less ambitious approach might have included just the works from the 1930s and ’40s. This kind of strict historicism would have focused attention more narrowly on art that is certifiably surrealist, in which case, it would have been engaging, but also somehow quaint. Still, a number of the pieces — particularly “Anatomy of a Vegetable” by Howard Warshaw and the works by John Wilde and Gertrude Abercrombie — would have nudged us toward redefining what we think of the movement. And certainly the quality of the works that fall into this historical category here never wavers for a moment, reaching a crest particularly in “Bananas and Plane” by Man Ray and “Still Life” by Francis Criss.

The works in this exhibit done since 1980 could also have been pleasingly arranged into an independent exhibition focused on contemporary art. The intelligence of this contemporary work is what stands out, particularly in David Ligare’s Thrown Drapery series and in Miriam Slater’s “Landscape.” The intuitive impact of many of the pieces is remarkable, especially Rebekah Bogard’s ceramics and Irma Cavat’s “Crossing Mountains.” But without the context of the early-20th-century works of historical surrealism, the contemporary works in the show would look just that — contemporary.

Which is why bringing the two groups together and intermingling them was such a brilliant decision, and one that takes us to a special place. “Dreamland” is a trip through the looking glass, not so much into pure fantasy, but instead one more deeply into our own world. Seeing a historical surrealist work like Bayer’s “Umsinkender (Collapsing)” next to “Hamish, Burning Spear” by Hank Pitcher, or “Two Figures, Snake Cloud” by Fred Remahl next to a Fred Stonehouse, makes the relationship between historical surrealism and our contemporary art perfectly clear. “Dreamland” does something important by making it impossible to feel smug about surrealism. Just when one might be tempted by the complacency of thinking the movement is over, along comes this show to demonstrate that — far from over — surrealism has gotten so big that we can’t even make out the edges of it. When we can’t see the surrealism within the landscape, for instance, it’s because, in fact, it is the landscape.

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