The name of the work The surprising discovery which is exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris, was taken up for the title of the retrospective exhibition Alan Glass: Surprising find, of 125 pieces by the surrealist artist of Canadian origin, who has lived in Mexico since 1963, which will be inaugurated on Wednesday at the Palacio de Bellas Artes Museum. However, the piece in question will not be present.
According to collector Carlos de Laborde-Noguez, a close friend of Glass (1932-2023), the drawings, paintings, invisible paintings and object boxes included in the exhibition come from his home, as well as from the artist’s workshop and from collectors. local. No work was brought from abroad. Glass was excited about the exhibition, which was confirmed just before he died, on January 16 of last year.
A century of surrealism
To surprising find, which coincides with the 100 years of Surrealist Manifesto, A review was carried out of the vast artistic production of more than five decades of Glass, who was one of the last foreign artists linked to the movement founded by André Breton who chose Mexico as their country of residence. He found in local culture an inexhaustible source of material and spiritual inspiration.
After beginning his art studies in his hometown of Montreal, Glass moved to Paris in 1953, where he became connected with the surrealist movement. A sugar skull, seen in the house of Aube, Breton’s daughter, attracted him to Mexico. In 1961 he made his first trip to the country, and in 1963 he settled permanently in the capital.
The artist is known for his object boxes. In his compositions, Glass assembles and encapsulates everyday things, such as buttons, gloves, locks of hair, dolls, sea shells or pieces of fabric, many found at random, to transform them into fascinating and enigmatic pieces. The exhibition includes everything from his previously unpublished automatist drawings created in Paris to a wide representation of his most iconic surrealist objects.
These works contain biographical references to the artist, as well as allusions to key figures with whom Glass interacted, integrating personal and cultural elements into compositions that transcend the tangible.
Artist Alan Glass in his studio, captured by Tufic Mahlouf Akl. Photo taken from the website of the Museum of the Palace of Fine Arts
The house of Rome
The artist lived for more than 30 years in a house in the Roma neighborhood, which, after his death, De Laborde-Noguez and his wife, Carolina, have maintained as if Alan were
.
The works They are cared for, worked on and restored. Once or twice a week both Carolina and I are there, so there is life in the house
. De Laborde-Noguez met Glass through a mutual friend, the surrealist painter Bridget Tichenor (1917-1990), who upon her death left a mandate that Don Carlos will take care of Alan
which he did fully.
In this regard he says, Alan never created a work for a third party or for the purpose of sale. He did what he wanted for him. He had a taste, an enormous memory; He knew, like no one else, to play with the ideas that came to him from the curiosity and wonder of objects and the readings of poems or romantic writings. To me, that is Alan, in addition to the integrity of his character and his person expressed in his work.
.
Very recently, the photographer Cristina Kahlo published the book about the Glass house, titled This house is a box. The Spanish publishing house El Viso also published the book Drawings: Alan Glass, 1952-1962.
film activities
The Mexican filmmaker Tufic Makhlouf Akl, who has filmed four documentaries about Glass, anticipates that in the context of the exhibition there will be an activity at the National Cinematheque for early 2025. The documentaries are: Via Alan Glass (2006), The surrealist cabinet of Alan Glass (2009), invisible darning (2009), made around the exhibition of the same name at the Museum of Modern Art, and Fascination: Made in France by Alan Glass (2016), filmed in the bathroom of his house as it is “a kind of museum of perfume bottles art deco y Art Nouveau”.
Apart from surprising find, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts plans a new exhibition of Glass’s work that will be presented from April 16 to September 18, 2025. It will be his first exhibition in a museum venue in his hometown, where he is little known.
The exhibition Alan Glass: Surprising find It will be exhibited from October 30 to February 16, 2025 at the Palacio de Bellas Artes Museum.
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