Focus on the arts
Surreal Experience
 By Joni Moths Mueller
Photography by ben smidt
When Marquette’s Haggerty Museum of Art hosted the first American retrospective exhibition of Wifredo Lam’s work, the museum staff invited the campus community to a drawing class. The lesson replicated a Surrealist parlor game called “exquisite corpse” which allows artists to collaborate in the creation of art.
The museum staff (registrar John Loscuito; head preparator Daniel Herro; and curator of education and community outreach Lynne Shumow) handed out large sheets of white paper folded accordion-style, and set a cigar box loaded with color and graphite pencils in the center of the table. Next came the instructions. They were simple; a friendly urging to shake loose inhibitions about drawing and let fly wild imaginings. For inspiration, they said, look at the Lam exhibition hanging in the gallery.
Now keep the paper folded so that you see just the top accordion panel and sketch the head of a creature there. Then fold your sketch under to hide it from view and pass the paper to your neighbor. Begin again; this time your assignment is the middle panel. Imagine the body of a whimsical creature and draw it. Fold your sketch under and pass it on. Finally, on the bottom panel, the foundation, will you imagine the earth or the moon, a creature slogging through sand or sprawled on a sofa, legs or claws, wheels or waves? Draw but don’t peek at the other sketches on your sheet.
How close did this group of amateur artists come to inventing exquisite corpse-like creatures? You be the judge.
The Haggerty Museum of Art hosts exhibitions and educational programs year-round that are open to the public and provide learning opportunities for Marquette students. |
The Wifredo Lam in North America exhibit featured more than 60 works from major museums, galleries and private collections across the United States and the Caribbean. To learn more about Lam’s style and influences, visit marquette.edu/haggerty and download two wonderful PDFs created to help teachers and families study the artist.
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