Grotesque: Art Beyond Restraint

About this event

The exhibition Grotesque: Art Beyond Restraint (https:/ /www.wesleyan.edu/dac/exhibitions/pages/2026c-grotesque-art-beyond-restraint.html) explores the ever roving and multiplying meanings of "the grotesque." Commonly associated with horror and abjection today, the grotesque has historically also been a locus of generation for caprice, wit, ribaldry, and ornament. The grotesque image is one that unsettles by disrupting what we think we know, producing conflicted reactions: disgust together with fascination, fear accompanied by laughter. Over time, numerous artistic movements have found the grotesque useful to their own ends and steered it in new directions. Renaissance, Baroque, Symbolist, Surr ealist, and Post-Structuralist artists have all found meaning in the grotesque. The exhibition features artwork by Lucas van Leyden, Nicoletto da Modena, Otto Dix, Odilon Redon, Jacques Callot, Kara Walker, and G iovanni Domenico Tiepolo, among others. Curated by Miya Tokumitsu, Donald T. Fallati and Ruth E. Pachman Curator of the Davison Art Collection.raint.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Grotesque: Art Beyond Restraint explores the ever roving and multiplying meanings of "the grotesque." Commonly associated with horror and abjection today, the grotesque has historically also been a locus of generation for caprice, wit, ribaldry, and ornament. The grotesque image is one that unsettles by disrupting what we think we know, producing conflicted reactions: disgust together with fascination, fear accompanied by laughter. Over time, numerous artistic movements have found the grotesque useful to their own ends and steered it in new directions. Renaissance, Baroque, Symbolist, Sur realist, and Post-Structuralist artists have all found meaning in the grotesque. The exhibition features artwork by Lucas van Leyden, Nicoletto da Modena, Otto Dix, Odilon Redon, Jacques Callot, Kara Walker, and Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, among others.

Curated by Miya Tokumitsu, Donald T. Fallati and Ruth E. Pachman Curator of the Davison Art Collection.