For the surrealists, the rationality on which Western civilization was based–long viewed as instrumental in safeguarding order–was responsible for the anguish and destruction produced by World War I. She was a surrealist, a full member of an anarchic Camelot that called for systematic revolution against the chaos produced by such institutions as government and religion. Remedios Varo lived during interesting times among interesting people. There are odd conveyances: gazebos on wheels and little boats like soupspoons with buttons and paddle wheels. Walls dissolve into ruffles a woman spoon-feeds the moon. Her works are an arcane catalog of stairways, hallways, towers, and moats. This summer the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum hosts a traveling retrospective, curated in Mexico, of captivating, subversive work by an important 20th-century woman artist, “The Magic of Remedios Varo.” Each of the 77 detailed, meticulous paintings and drawings on display offers a window on the Catalan-born Varo’s complicated vision of an occult world.
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