Wolfgang Paalen and Surrealism in Mexico

A year before his arrival in Mexico, in 1938, together with Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Salvador Dalí, Paalen participated in the design and assembly of the International Exhibition of Surrealism, held at the Beaux Arts Gallery in Paris.

The exhibition was key to the movement, as it featured an installation located under the roof of Duchamp's empty coal sacks. It consisted of a pond with water, aquatic plants, dried leaves and soil from the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris.

One of the main approaches adopted by those who shared the surrealist trend was their renewed appreciation of the world of objects.

Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, he created The Genius of the Species with bird bones. 

An object that refers to an ulterior state of life, and at the same time represents a materialization of his idea of weapons and scientific discoveries as our protectors, but also as instruments capable of making us lose all sense of what is human.

In keeping with his surrealist objects and cosmic paintings, this mural project was elaborated on an irregular support held by three steel bars, which give it the appearance of floating in space.

The dynamic forms and brushstrokes poured into it allow us to understand the way Paalen understood muralism.

In the mid-thirties, Breton encouraged artists to create new techniques. Paalen soon developed fumage, a pictorial technique that consists of passing a lit candle over the canvas, in order to leave traces of smoke.

From these traces the artist created a series of figures, landscapes and characters that show his interest in generating and re-interpreting characters from mythology and totemism, as well as the cult of the mother goddess and fear-driven epiphany.

With the fumage technique he also created works of a more abstract character that evoke a space composed of intermingling shapes and lines.

We observe whimsical forms that are accidentally defined by fire, a gesture par excellence of the so-called plastic automatism.

A method promoted by the surrealists, in which the artist suppressed conscious control and allowed the unconscious to predominate in his creative process.

Through a set of dynamic tornadoes, which sometimes intercept and converge with each other, the pictorial space enjoys great depth. 

In this piece Paalen showed his interest in representing not only the different layers of time and space, but also the turbulent flow, that for him, involved macro cosmic space.