Somnambulist/Fabulist

David Salle, The Drunken Chauffeur, 1983, silkscreen, 20 x 41 inches, gift of Ben and Lesta Wunsch, 1985.10.2

Frederico Castellon, It Was a Gay and Magnificent Revel from The Mask of the Red Death, 1969, color lithograph on paper, collection of The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, 1969.14.14

Salvador Dali, De hibernacin from Les Caprices de Goya de Dali, 1977, etching and aquatint on paper, four prints from a portfolio of eighty, collection of The Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Cantanucci, 1997.7.40

In our dreams, the familiar becomes strange and the bizarre is made believable. Fragments of recognizable settings, people, and events are woven into seamless narratives that are mysterious or unexpected, and yet somehow inevitable. These images can blur the distinctions between illusion and reality, offering a continuation of waking life while asleep.

Somnambulist/Fabulist is a selection of works from the Tang’s collections that explores the creative links between dreaming and storytelling. Are dreams, in fact, just stories that we tell ourselves to help us make sense of our daily existence? The exhibition’s title joins the words somnambulist — a sleepwalker — and fabulist, a creator of fables. Like fables, whose often-absurd characters teach practical lessons, the narratives that emerge in dreams offer coded messages that seem ripe for interpretation.

Each work on view presents a different type of dreamscape, from peaceful solitude to nightmarish reverie. Collage plays an important role in this process.

Gina Magid incorporates two translucent realities into one, while strange hybrid creatures populate works by Frederico Castellon, Salvador Dalí, and Kevin Carter. Some pieces use formal shifts of scale and perspective to evoke varied states of awareness. A distorted teacup by Robert Lazzarini shimmers like a mirage, while five tiny paintings by Jeronimo Elespe recall the way dreams can elude us by receding before being fused into memory. In other works, spaces collapse inward or tunnel outward to infinity. David Salle’s large-scale screenprint employs vibrant color and frantic linework to present overlapping voices and a cacophony of emotions, dominated by anxiety, confusion, and sexual preoccupations. A painting of seemingly mundane objects on plain cabinet shelves is but a small window onto Jim Shaw’s Dream Object series. This decade-long project features imagery pulled directly from what Shaw remembers of his dreams, and represents a meticulous document of an especially vivid dream life.

Somnambulist/Fabulist is organized by Ginny Kollak, Tang Curatorial Assistant.

A person with a beak-like nose looks backwards at a group of costumed figures while skeletal arms emerge from the shadows to reach towards a large ringing bell.

Federico Castellon
A Muffled Peal Solemnly Emphatic, 1969
color lithograph on Rives BFK paper

Exhibition Name

Somnambulist/Fabulist

Exhibition Type

Group Exhibitions

Place

Winter Gallery

Dates

Jun 24, 2006 - Oct 15, 2006

Curators