Field of Dreams

For an art form rooted in timeless fantasies and sublime
landscapes, Surrealism is surprisingly in the here and now.

Specifically, it’s here, at the Louis Stern Fine Arts Gallery,
and now, through Nov. 12.

Surrealism has survived as a vital and relevant art form long
after other styles, namely Cubism and Impressionism, have
disappeared. This is largely because it lacks the political and
stylistic ties that have limited other art forms to a particular
look or era. The only requirement of surrealist art is that it
springs from the subconscious or the fantastic.

"Imaginary Realities: Surrealism Then and Now," on display at
the Louis Stern Fine Arts Gallery, and the plethora of other
current surrealist exhibits in L.A. are a testament to the fact
that the world of the human subconscious is a fascinating and
ever-changing one that continuously sparks interest and art.

"Surrealism is an ongoing thing, because it’s created in the
minds of human beings. We all think, we have these ideas, we have
these fantasies, these dreams. Some of us have the ability to
translate them into images," gallery owner Louis Stern says.

His current exhibition is a visual diary of Surrealism’s diverse
and growing history that spans every era, style, media and culture
– from Salvador Dali to Billy Wilder, from the humorous to the
eerie or just plain bizarre.

Many timid onlookers are afraid that they lack the skills
required to "read" a surrealist work, when all that is necessary is
an open mind and an imagination willing to enter the whimsical,
absurd, or sublime worlds the artists conjure.

"I think that one of the interesting aspects of all of this is
that the interpretations are so subjective. You can get three
people to look at a surrealistic picture and you’re going to have
three different opinions," Stern says.

"Our mind permits us to concoct very, very strange combinations.
There is no limit with surrealism, and that is what makes it so
interesting," he continues.

Surrealism is to art what the most outlandish of fairy tales is
to literature – a dreamlike place of fantasy that stands reality on
its head, a place where furniture is made of astroturf and men wear
capes and crowns made of vegetables.

Jon Swihart renders the latter image beautifully in a 1990
untitled work on display at the gallery. The oil-on-canvas depicts
a lone, sandaled traveler descending forbidding rocks in a mesh
cape covered with vibrant radishes, spinach, flowers and jalapenos.
Carrots radiate in a circle from the leafy crown on his head, and
he holds what passes in his world as a staff – a shovel similarly
decorated, but with the random addition of a rabbit’s face on the
scoop. The monumental, prophet-like figure stands against a plush
blue sky that rounds out the image of an idyllic, yet desolate and
strange, Eden.

No matter how it is rendered, all of the artists represented
incorporate this element of dreams where things are almost perfect,
yet somehow completely unfamiliar and out of place.

"(Rene) Magritte always incorporates a dreamlike quality – the
distortions, the total departure from reality – and it is the title
for our show. They’re imaginary realities," Stern says.

Stern’s exhibit boasts many of Surrealism’s biggest names –
including Magritte – alongside some of the artists they have
influenced. Dali, Jean Arp, Man Ray and Max Ernst all share wall
space with the most talented ’90s artists, many of whom are from
L.A. Considering that Ray lived on Vine St. in Hollywood and Dali
worked on the sets of Alfred Hitchcock films, this should not be
too surprising. L.A. (and Surrealism itself) was also a haven for
those escaping the horrors of the Nazis and World War II in
Europe.

"L.A. has a very strong heritage of surrealism. It involves not
only art, but writing as well, and the cinema. Let’s face it –
there’s a lot of surrealism in films. In the old days it was
created by people like Dali…. Today, naturally they don’t need
the artists, because they can do it all through digital
manipulation and computers," Stern says.

"But I think that the surrealist tradition continues in
California, and that’s why I thought that the show made sense. I’ve
always wanted to do one, but I was concerned that I wouldn’t be
able to get the kind of material that I wanted to get, because
surrealist works are quite scarce.

"I really didn’t know whether it would make any sense for me to
do that in a commercial gallery setting – go to the trouble and
expense of mounting a show and selling works. Nevertheless, I was
always anxious to go forward with it. And when UCLA scheduled the
Magritte show and I learned about it, I thought it would be a good
time to present it," Stern says.

Stern’s fears were apparently unfounded, because the gallery
does give a fairly comprehensive glimpse of Surrealism, which is
pretty hard to do.

"We presented the roots of Surrealism, the masters and
innovators. Surrealism is an offshoot of Dada and is based on the
writings of Andre Breton and the manifesto he wrote on Surrealism
in the mid-1920s," Stern says. Though these beginnings are
important, the movement has continued to break artistic ground,
unlike many styles of art.

"With the Fauves, artists went crazy with the palette and
produced these brilliant, bold paintings that were full of impact.
That was between 1903 and 1906. Then, just after that, you had
Cubism, with the innovators – Picasso, Braque and Grieg," Stern
says. But the styles’ constricting limitations made it difficult
for new artists to expand them.

"Cubism is Cubism…. The only one to really take a spin on
Cubism was Leger. … (Artists’ attitudes were) ‘That’s been
done,’" he continues. "And once it’s done, like with Impressionism,
it’s time to move on."

But Surrealism focused not on the city and its politics or on
certain shapes and colors, but on pure escape. Its intangible
subject and form have allowed it to grow and change as times and
dreams have. It has yet to "be done."

"Surrealism is not exclusive. The innovators deserve credit –
the ability that Dali had to create these almost photographic
images that are totally incongruous, totally distorted, that have
really nothing to do with what we know as reality," Stern says.

This trend, in completely different form and subject matter,
continues today. Doug Webb’s painting of a New York fountain filled
with tire-sized coins "troubles the viewer because everything is
real, yet it can’t happen that way because coins aren’t that large.
… It throws us," Stern says. "Our senses are thrown off-course.
We’re seeing something we’re not used to seeing."

Often viewers are thrown off-balance by the art’s humor or
shocking elements. "If you look at books on Surrealism, a lot of
times you’ll catch yourself snickering," Stern says. Dali may
remain the king of humor, but though he was shocking for his time,
works today are far more foreign and even offensive to some. Stern
mentions an installation he saw once where a man chopped cows in
half so viewers could peer inside.

He feels this trend parallels the general rise in the "shock
threshold" of our culture.

"We’re doing things today that no one would dream of now," he
says of everything from bare-breasted women on regular television
to Clinton’s approval rating despite his extra-marital affairs. "If
J.F.K. had been implicated in some sort of a scandal with a woman
the way Clinton has been implicated with Gennifer Flowers and the
others… he wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance in hell of being
re-elected," Stern says of our increasingly permissive and
promiscuous culture.

"It’s a phenomenon of our civilization."

This does not mean, however, that all must buy into it. Stern
has an 18-year-old daughter that he would like to shield from some
of the more explicit elements of free expression, such as the work
of legendary photographer, Robert Mapplethorpe, whose photographs
of oral sex and anal penetration by a bull whip have whipped
conservatives and liberals alike into a frenzy.

"(My daughter and) I were invited to a big Mapplethorpe show.
And I had mixed emotions about whether I would want her exposed to
that. And the issue of freedom of speech and expression and so on,
which I think plays upon the aspects of what one can produce.

"An individual can come up and say, ‘I want to show you this
because it’s something I created.’ And it happens to be offensive
to you. Now, is it my right to display it? And is it your right not
to see it?" Stern asks.

Ultimately, Stern feels there has to be a sense of balance.
Though Surrealism is often less controversial simply because it
deals with such abstract fantasies that no single interpretation
can be drawn, it still may cross that line. While Stern and the
general public may not consider grossly offensive images or
"artistic performances" art, those works will still find a
public.

"There are people who are always looking for something shocking
and new out there. And you’ll always find someone that will be
attracted to it," Stern says.

ART: "Imaginary Realities: Surrealism Then and Now" shows at the
Louis Stern Fine Art Gallery through Nov. 12. Gallery hours are
Tue- Fri 10- 6, Sat 11- 5. Closed Sunday. Free entrance. Call (310)
276- 0147 for more info.