Gallery Wendi Norris returns to Frieze Masters with a presentation centered on Wolfgang Paalen’s fascination with and influence from the Indigenous art of the Americas. Paalen went beyond many Surrealists' romanticized or exoticized views of Indigenous art, instead focusing on its philosophical depth and symbolic language, which he wrote about in the influential avant-garde journal Dyn. Paalen viewed Indigenous art—from that of pre-Columbian cultures to the Northwest Coast First Nations—as embodying profound metaphysical and spiritual principles rather than simply being an aesthetic, with an emphasis on abstraction, spirituality, and mythology.
The artworks exhibited in this presentation will trace these threads in Paalen’s practice, as well as in those of his peers Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Alice Rahon, and his studio assistant, Peter Young.
