Ceci n'est pas une pipe. Magritte.

Magritte's exhibit opens at MoMA tomorrow, which means that yesterday was the last day of member previews, which means I went. Yesterday. 

I just needed a hefty dose of food for the soul, since I've been spending most of my days cooped up in the lab, missing out on the gorgeous september days in New York. Ouch.

Les Amants.
Source.

La Trahison des images (Ceci n'est pas une pipe).
Source.

Monsieur Magritte was one great, amazing, crazy son of a bitch. I love his work. Have loved him since that fantastic month-long trip to Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland and Germany I took with a great friend back in 2004. We were young, extremely thrifty at milking our student status, and had surprising upper body strength - hello, enormous backpacks. 

It was during that trip that I discovered the pleasures of double-fried fries in Brugge, beer, Bao Bao (RIP), and how MoMA looked on vacation in Berlin (hint: it WAS crowded). Also, it was on that trip that I fell in love with modern art by visiting places like this, this, this and this. And, of course, braving the crowds to see the above-mentioned "Das MoMA in Berlin" and other goodies. 

Clairvoyance
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This time around, I feel almost at home at MoMA, and I was more than happy to let Monsieur crazy-ass Magritte take me down his rabbit hole. There are a lot of works on display and the exhibit is beautifully curated. I expect it will be a hit, so I am quite happy I managed take part of the previews and share the view with a manageable crowd.

I'm no conoisseur, but in my opinion, Magritte's genious lays in his unusual juxtapositions. His personal brand of surrealism is less fantastic than for example Dali's. With Dali's work, you're immediately transported into a different world, where the ordinary is so very intertwined with the extraordianry, but the extraordinary wins by a hefty margin. Magritte is different. More subtle, if you will. At first glance, you notice something "off" with the (strikingly realistically depicted) objects in the painting, but it takes a second or two to actually see what is "off". 

Many of the works on display made me smile or even giggle, but quite a few were downright disturbing. 

Among my favourites were Clairvoyance, a self portrait from 1936, Les Amants, from 1928, and La Reproduction Interdite, from 1937. Rape (from 1934), on the other hand, completely freaked me out.