Cadavre Exquis, André Breton, Max Morise, Jeannette Ducrocq Tanguy, Pierre Naville, Benjamin Péret, Yves Tanguy, Jacques Prévert
Figure
c. 1927
Cut-and-pasted printed paper and pencil on paper
Not on view
In this collaborative collage, seven Surrealist artists and poets assembled an anthropomorphic form by stacking found printed images of mundane objects: an umbrella is the upper body, a trunk is the torso, and nested pots are two thighs, which one participant extended in pencil. The presence of the umbrella recalls a phrase the Surrealists adopted from the poet Comte de Lautréamont (born Isidore Ducasse) as an ideal description of the principle of juxtaposition: "As beautiful as the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table."
Exquisite Corpses: Drawing and Disfiguration, March 14–July 9, 2012.
Explore more
André Breton
French, 1896–1966 32 works onlineIn 1924 André Breton declared, “Surrealism is based on the belief in the superior reality of certain forms of previously neglected associations, in the omnipotence of dream, in the disinterested play of thought.
Learn more →
Exquisite corpse
A game in which each participant takes turns writing or drawing on a sheet of paper, folding it to conceal his or her contribution, and then passing it to the next player for a further contribution.
Learn more →
From MoMA Design Store
Installation views
We have identified this work in the following photos from our exhibition history.
Licensing
Artwork or archival images
If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA's collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).
Audio and film clips
MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit Circulating Film and Video Library.
Text from a publication or the archives
If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication, please email [email protected]. If you would like to publish text from MoMA's archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to [email protected].
Feedback
This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please fill out this feedback form.