100th anniversary of Surrealism celebrated at Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit
Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) celebrates 100 years of Surrealism with four exhibitions exploring the many facets of surrealism in contemporary art. MOCAD presents “Chris Schanck’s A Surreality,” ASMA Collective’s “Wander + Pursuit,” collaborative works from Clare Gatto and Kara Gut in “Magic Circle,” and a site-specific installation, “Portal Fire: Shrine of the Torchbearer” from Levon Kafafian in Mike Kelley’s Mobile Homestead. These new perspectives on the impactful art movement will be on view from November 22, 2024, to February 23, 2025.
“As Artistic Director of MOCAD, I am thrilled to usher in four new exhibitions that reimagine and honor the legacy of Surrealism,” Jova Lynne, Co-Director/Artistic Director of MOCAD, said. “These visionary artists are breaking boundaries, challenging perceptions, and inviting us into worlds where the line between reality and the imagination blurs. We are excited to present these dynamic works that not only reflect the surrealist movement’s past but also shape its future in contemporary art here in Detroit.”
Kicking off the season, MOCAD is pleased to present Detroit-based artist and designer Chris Schanck’s first Detroit solo museum presentation “A Surreality,” featuring a collection of fantastic objects, sculptures, and furnishings that explore the expansive nature of science fiction, myth, and fantasy in crafting our reality. Located in Woodward Gallery, Schanck’s distinctive design practice prioritizes imagination and celebrates the transformative power of extraordinary experiences and otherworldly narratives.
“A Surreality” features shimmering coffee tables, mirrors, tables, light fixtures, and ethereal chairs that transport you to another dimension. Schanck creates a new reality by sparkling and shimmering to underline the blurry nature of experience from science fiction to fantasy.
Schanck’s work explores multiple layers of meaning, transforming each object into a vessel for discourse. His work contributes to the lexicon of craft practices, where objects, sculptures, and installations create undefinable and amorphous experiences.
In “Wander + Pursuit,” ASMA creates a visual metaphor merging biological and artificial life as the office space. They use material technology, surrealism, organic shapes, and craft processes. Their installation is a site for two functions: an environment that instrumentalizes the body as a labor source and a place to transform into a recreational space, such as a romantic garden.
“Wander & Pursuit” is populated with images of the pursuit of romantic love projected onto objects of immaterial labor, such as computers, printers, and other office components.
In the words of ASMA, this space is “a ruin from a time in our past when life was divided into work and leisure.”
“Wander & Pursuit” is the first museum exhibition in the United States of the Mexico City-based artist duo ASMA, formed by Hanya Beliá and Matias Armendaris.
“Magic Circle,” Clare Gatto and Kara Güt’s first museum exhibition as collaborators, centers on fantasy roleplay video game design and motifs as points of departure and offers a glimpse into an alternate realm or reality. Through hybrid assemblages, the artists transform the gallery into an ambiguous “in-between” world that collapses the boundaries dividing the virtual from the “real.” They push and pull once-familiar images of the natural environment, including volcanic rocks, sand, and bricks, in and out of virtual space to create a library of textures that intentionally elude easy recognition.
In “Magic Circle,” Gatto and Güt create a momentary glitch in the system and give us space to embrace a sense of fluidity and uncertainty in the ways we define what’s real.
Rounding out the season is “Portal Fire: Shrine of the Torchbearer,” a presentation of new work by the Detroit-based artist Levon Kafafian. Borne from MOCAD’s partnership with New York based residency program International Studio and Curatorial Program Residency, Kafafian presents a series of immersive vignettes that invites viewers into the imaginary world of Azadistan, a sophisticated and highly stratified civilization where textiles have become symbolic markers of class and power and act as a narrative guide to the nuances of society.
“Portal Fire: Shrine of the Torchbearer” demonstrates Kafafian’s creative approach to channeling the evolving realities of the Armenian diasporic experience. Inspired by the concept of ‘Armeno-Futurism,’ the exhibition centers a commitment to envisioning expansive futures in the wake of the historical and ongoing loss of ancestral Armenian homelands.
About Chris Schanck
Designer Chris Schanck’s work embraces the tension between dilapidation and opulence, asking us to find unconventional beauty in the imperfect. Schanck was born in Pittsburgh in 1975 and grew up in Dallas, Texas. He received a Bachelor’s of Fine Art degree in sculpture from the School of Visual Arts and a Master’s of Fine Arts degree in design from Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Upon graduating in 2011, Schanck founded a studio in Detroit employing over a dozen artists, students, and craftspeople. Based in a former factory in Banglatown, a neighborhood with a dense immigrant population, the local community plays a key role in Schanck’s egalitarian studio practice, which brings outsiders into design culture.
About ASMA
ASMA is an artist duo based in Mexico City, formed by Matias Armendaris (Ecuadorian, b. 1990) and Hanya Beliá (Mexican, b. 1994). Combined, they hold an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from Emily Carr University, as well as a BFA in Visual Arts from the Facultad de Artes y Diseño (UNAM).
The duo has exhibited internationally, including Manifesta Biennial, Marseille, Museo Tamayo, México City, The Chicago Artist Coalition, and Denver Art Museum.
About Kara Güt and Clare Gatto
Clare Gatto and Kara Gut are image-based digital media artists who have collaborated and shown work together over the past 10+ years alongside their independent practices. They attended Ohio State University and Cranbrook Academy of Art.
They live and work in Cleveland, OH, and Detroit, MI, respectively.
About Levon Kafafian
Based in Detroit, MI, Kafafian holds a BFA in Fiber from the College for Creative Studies and a BA in Anthropology from Wayne State University in 2014. Kafafian has forthcoming exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, MI, and CUE Foundation, NY.
By Chadd Scott