»Sixties Surreal«

European Surrealism of the 1920s and 1930s was revived in a more developed form in the United States in the 1960s: In a time of radical, revolutionary social and political change, many artists sought new strategies to reconnect art with lived reality, which seemed increasingly unrealistic due to the upheavals of the postwar period. The exhibition Sixties Surreal looks beyond the movements that are now considered canonical and instead focuses on the most fundamental, albeit little-noticed, aesthetic trend of this era—a blossoming of psychosexual, fantastical, and revolutionary tendencies. Works by over 100 artists will be on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York from September 24, 2025, to January 19, 2026.

The unique concept of the exhibition allows visitors to gain an almost unadulterated view of the period, independent of the art-historical canon that developed in the second half of the 20th century. In addition to famous names, various artists who are unknown today and have only recently been rediscovered are also represented, including Diane Arbus, Louise Bourgeois, Roger Brown, Mel Casas, Barbara Hammer, Wally Hedrick, Kiki Kogelnik, Yayoi Kusama, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Luchita Hurtado, Jae Jarrell, John Outterbridge, Paul Thek, and Carlos Villa. Central to the exhibition is the approach of comparing perceptions of reality and the artistic works based on them from across the United States, from New York to Los Angeles.