GUIDE HERE!
Sixties Surreal
Sixties Surreal examines how artists in the 1960s reinterpreted surrealism to address shifting cultural and political landscapes. On view at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York from September 24, 2025 to January 19, 2026, the exhibition highlights works that merge fantasy, satire, and psychological exploration.
Sixties Surreal is presented by the Whitney Museum of American Art, located at 99 Gansevoort Street, New York, New York. The exhibition runs from September 24, 2025 through January 19, 2026. The exhibition explores the resurgence and transformation of surrealist ideas in the United States during the 1960s, bringing together artists who experimented with dream imagery, psychological symbolism, and alternative realities in response to the decade’s social and political upheavals.
Exhibition Description
Sixties Surreal investigates the ways artists working in the United States during the 1960s engaged with and reimagined surrealist strategies. Emerging at a moment defined by civil rights activism, countercultural movements, and rapid technological change, many artists turned to dream imagery, symbolic distortion, and unconventional narratives as tools for questioning dominant social structures. Through painting, sculpture, film, photography, and installation, the exhibition traces how surrealist ideas—originally developed in Europe earlier in the twentieth century—were reinterpreted by artists confronting the anxieties and possibilities of the 1960s. Rather than simply reviving historical surrealism, these artists expanded its language, blending humor, political critique, and psychological exploration. Presented by the Whitney Museum of American Art, Sixties Surreal situates this moment within a broader art-historical conversation about imagination as a form of resistance. The exhibition runs through January 19, 2026 at the Whitney Museum in New York.
