Art Green (American, 1941-2025); Gladys Nilsson (American, born 1940); Jim Nutt (American, born 1938); Suellen Rocca (American, 1943-2020); and Karl Wirsum (American, 1939-2021)
Exquisite Corpse
INV-2309
Art Green (American, 1941-2025); Gladys Nilsson (American, born 1940); Jim Nutt (American, born 1938); Suellen Rocca (American, 1943-2020); and Karl Wirsum (American, 1939-2021)1967/68
drawings (visual works)paper
Date
1967/68
Medium
Graphite, with erasure, on off-white wove paper
Dimensions
28 × 23 cm (11 1/16 × 9 1/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Gift of the artists
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).
Also notable
Works in the same vein
The Hairy Who Sideshow
Art Green (American, 1941-2025); Gladys Nilsson (American, born 1940); Jim Nutt (American, born 1938); Suellen Rocca (American, 1943-2020); and Karl Wirsum (American, 1939-2021)
The Portable Hairy Who!
Hairy Who (James Falconer (American, 1943-2022); Art Green (American, 1941-2025); Gladys Nilsson (American, born 1940); Jim Nutt (American, born 1938); Suellen Rocca (American, 1943-2020); and Karl Wirsum (American, 1939-2021))
The Hairy Who
Hairy Who (Art Green (American, 1941-2025); Gladys Nilsson (American, born 1940); Jim Nutt (American, born 1938); Suellen Rocca (American, 1943-2020); and Karl Wirsum (American, 1939-2021))
