The 59th Edition of the Venice Biennale will be titled “The Milk of Dreams”. The name is derived from the series of drawings that the British-born Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington did while she was living in Mexico during the 1950s. Later on, these drawings were published as a children’s book; an English-language edition came out in 2017. The exhibition will run from April 23 to November 27.
In a statement, Alemani said, “Told in a dreamlike style that seemed to terrify young and old alike, Carrington’s stories describe a world set free, brimming with possibilities. But it is also the allegory of a century that imposed intolerable pressure on the individual, forcing Carrington into a life of exile: locked up in mental hospitals, an eternal object of fascination and desire, yet also a figure of startling power and mystery, always fleeing the strictures of a fixed, coherent identity.”
Carrington, who died in 2011, outlived many of her Surrealist colleagues, but it is only in the past few years that her vast artistic output—ranging from paintings and sculptures to novels, poetry, plays, and costumes—has been recognized internationally. Historically, her career as an artist has been overshadowed by her short relationship with fellow Surrealist Max Ernst.
In her paintings, Carrington presents mystical and fantastical scenes filled with androgynous beings and animals. This drove her interest in alchemy, the occult, healing rituals, Jungian theory, and the lore of Celts and the Maya’s Popol Vuh. In 2015, Tate Liverpool mounted a retrospective of her work, and Carrington’s art was prominently featured in the Surrealist galleries when the Museum of Modern Art in New York reopened in 2019. Last month, Mexico City’s Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) announced that it would turn her former home into a museum.