About this artwork
The so-called cadavre exquis or exquisite corpse, a Surrealist visual game, was created in winter 1925–26, when members of the group gathered in the evenings. If conversation lagged, they invented games to spark the unconscious. The exquisite corpse grew out of one such invention, which reimagined the children’s game of “head, body, legs,” in which each participant adds to a drawing without seeing the preceding contributions, which are hidden by folding the paper. The results are strange, sometimes violent, combinations of images. The Surrealists produced many such drawings (the Art Institute has several; for example, 2018.333, 2018.334, and 2018.335), and these collaborative experiments were profoundly influential. The Chicago-based Hairy Who artists also played the game in the late 1960s, but with more playful results (for example, 2018.684, 2018.685, 2018.686, 2018.687, 2018.688, and 2018.689).
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Prints and Drawings
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Artist
- The Hairy Who (Art Green, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Jim Falconer, Suellen Rocca, and Karl Wirsum)
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Title
- Exquisite Corpse
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- 1967–1968
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Medium
- Graphite, with erasure, and cut and pasted printed paper element, on off-white wove paper
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Dimensions
- 28 × 23 cm (11 1/16 × 9 1/16 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of the artists
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Reference Number
- 2018.686
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Copyright
- © Art Green, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Suellen Rocca, and Kirl Wirsum.
Extended information about this artwork
Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.
