From the World of Dreams: Melanesian Art and a small retrospective of Important Surrealist Prints curated by Timothy Baum

Pace African and Oceanic Art presents From the World of Dreams: Melanesian Art and a small retrospective of Important Surrealist Prints curated by Timothy Baum on view 2 May - 3 July 2024. The exhibition features over a dozen 19th century figures, masks and other objects from Papua New Guinea, New Ireland and the Solomon Islands. Presented with the Melanesian art is a retrospective of Surrealist prints curated by Timothy Baum, noted specialist in Dada and Surrealist art, which includes over 30 etchings, lithographs and photographs from the 1920s to 1960s.

In the idealized "Surrealist Map of the World", published in 1929 in a special issue of Variétés, a Belgian magazine dedicated to surrealism, the placement of Papua New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago in the center of the map, and larger than both Europe and Asia, reveal the allure that cultures from Oceania held for the Surrealists. Searching for a new means of expression, the Surrealists found inspiration in non-Western art and objects which to them was exemplified by Malagan sculptures from Papua New Guinea. Used for rituals to celebrate the founders of clans and endowed with immense magical powers, these sculptures, fearsome but amiable, connected the ground with the powers of the other world.