“Yes, I killed him. I killed him for money—and a woman—and I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman. Pretty, isn’t it?”(Double Indemnity, 1944. Screenplay by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler)

Maria Loboda, The sound of a jade figuring falling onto a Chondzoresk rug, 2010. Installation at Monitor, Rome.

Surrealism was a movement that developed in Europe in the first decades of the twentieth century at a time of cultural crisis. It flourished on the understanding that preexisting social hierarchies were no longer operational and metaphysical bonds with higher powers had been broken for good. Surrealists concurrently embraced an intellectual and sensuous way of being in the world and started to explore new symbolic meanings in their art, language, and social habits, while repurposing their lifestyles in response to what had changed around them.

Continue reading →