Espejismos/Mirages

Patricia Vervoort is an assistant professor of art history at Lakehead
University.

Mirages is the title of an exhibition which opened in April 1982 at the Galerie Surrealiste in Toronto. Bilingual, in Spanish and English, the book is introduced by Ludwig Zeller, who also contributed an autobiographical statement. Susana Wald wrote an autobiographical statement. Both artists included imaginary biographical statements as Dlaw Anasus and Rellez Giwdul. The 44 black-and-white collages are accompanied by short poems and thoughts by a variety of writers, mostly Spanish, but also others by Giorgio de Chirico, Rene Dumal, and A.F. Moritz. Ludwig Zeller also included two of his own short poems. An epilogue by John Robert Colombo relates information about the artist-couple and their family before and after their arrival in Canada from Santiago, Chile, in 1971.

Reminiscent of Max Ernst, the collages utilize old illustrations; the sources are not indicated. The collages, which are unframed, vary in size and placement; most of the double-page arrangements have a detail enlarged on the left and the complete collage on the right. The figures are delicately penned and never isolated; they are accompanied by mechanical illustrations of watches, guns, knives, nuts-and-bolts, and sundry other objects. The imagery is eerie and surreal as the realism of parts contrasts with the incongruity of the whole. Each collage is titled; for example, “The Rain of Pebbles” (# 16) depicts two figures with minimal shading, but the jars, tools, and a horse’s head all display a full range of tone. Aptly titled, Mirages is a collaborative work of dreams and nightmares intricately detailed in surrealist collages.