The Whitney Investigates the 60s Through Surrealism

Summary

Podcast Episode Summary

Podcast: All Of It (WNYC)
Episode: The Whitney Investigates the 60s Through Surrealism
Host: David Fuerst (in for Alison Stewart)
Date: September 24, 2025
Guests: Dan Nadella & Laura Phipps (curators, Whitney Museum of American Art)
Topic: 60s Surreal—a major new exhibition at the Whitney exploring the profound impact of surrealism on American art and culture in the 1960s.

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the Whitney Museum's new exhibition, 60s Surreal, which argues that surrealism—often overshadowed by Pop art—was a defining force in American cultural and artistic transformation during the 1960s. Co-curators Dan Nadella and Laura Phipps join to discuss how the show reframes our understanding of the era, the diversity of artists included, and the surprising, destabilizing power of the surreal in a decade marked by upheaval and innovation.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

What Is Surrealism?

• Origins and Essence:
  • Surrealism originated between World Wars I and II in Paris, aiming to access the unconscious for radical ideas about protest, sexuality, and dreams.
    [Dan Nadella | 01:09]:

    "It was really about accessing the unconscious to come up with radical ideas about protest and sexuality and dreams and all the things possible from sort of from a dream state and things we wouldn't otherwise imagine."

• Aesthetic Qualities:
  • Surrealism is challenging to define—a kind of "groundwater" in culture, seeping into various forms and often manifesting as collages of unexpected ideas.
    [Laura Phipps | 01:45]:

    "The aesthetics of sort of historic surrealism, this idea of collage putting together ideas that maybe were unconsciously accessed, comes out in different ways for artists of the 1960s."

Surrealism’s Journey from Paris to America

• After WWII, surrealism captivated filmmakers, musicians, graphic designers, etc.
  • Examples: Hitchcock working with Salvador Dalí, 1950s sci-fi and romance films, covers and illustrations leveraging dreamlike motifs.
    [Dan Nadella | 02:50]:

    "It was catnip for filmmakers and graphic designers and illustrators and writers and musicians after World War II."

Why Did Surrealism Catch on in U.S. Culture?

• Post-war disorientation and need for a "release valve"; pop culture moments themselves could be surreal (e.g., Elvis Presley’s TV debut).
  [Dan Nadella | 03:34]:

  "People needed a release valve and to feel like the strangeness of what they'd just been through might be reflected in the art and the culture they were absorbing."

Exhibition Overview & Notable Artists

• 60s Surreal features 100+ American artists working in diverse media—inclusive of well-known names (Faith Ringgold, Diane Arbus) and less-explored experimental figures.
  • Aims to reframe "the American 1960s" by juxtaposing known and unknown artists, filmmakers, and mediums.
    [Laura Phipps | 05:16]:

    "We have so many different mediums within any particular gallery, but we're including works of, say, filmmakers Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wylie in a gallery also with James Rosenquist."

• Surprising gallery pairings are designed to reveal shared interests in mass media, domestic life, and the surreal.

Curatorial Process and Storytelling

• Historic research on exhibitions from 1958–1972 informed selection, focused on complementarity and dialogue among artists rather than just "greatest hits."
  [Dan Nadella | 07:13]:

  "It was about finding the right combinations of artists to speak to one another across time, really, and across space. So it became less about assembling the greatest hits... and more about assembling a really interesting group of voices that could kind of sing together."

Time Frame: Why 1958–1972?

• Encapsulates "the long 60s"—from late 1950s aesthetic shifts (e.g., Beat influence) through a gradual move away from surrealist approaches in the early 1970s.
  [Laura Phipps | 08:50]:

  "You have to create limits in a show this large."

What to Expect in the Exhibition

• Signature Entry Piece:
  • Three hyperrealistic camel sculptures by Nancy Graves—a nod to both the strange and the familiar.
    [Laura Phipps | 09:51]:

    "They come across as real live camels in the gallery, but they are actually sculptures... For Dan and I... really sets the stage for the understanding of this show as something other than historic surrealism."

• Destabilizing the Familiar:
  • Part of the curators’ mission is to leave visitors unsettled and ready to experience something new, “destabilizing and fun and interesting and kind of mind blowing at times.”
    [Dan Nadella | 11:09]:

    "Camels look strange... encountering these things also, what would they be doing in an art museum?"

A Revisionist Survey—Shifting the Canon

• The show challenges the text-book focus on Pop, Minimalism, and Conceptual Art, revealing broader creative undercurrents.
  [Laura Phipps | 12:11]:

  "And this show is really an attempt to look at what those other things are... just see what it was that artists were making that isn't categorized by art history necessarily."

Why Were the 60s So Fertile for Surrealism?

• A youth boom, massive expansion of higher education, new social freedoms, and revolutionary movements for civil rights and sexual liberation all set the stage. The irrational, unconventional, and surreal became natural languages for expressing change. [Dan Nadella | 13:13]:

  "Everything was up for grabs. You know, religion, civil rights, protest. All these things were happening all at once. And so how. How better to deal with that than to express the kind of irrationality of it all in visual art and 60s."

• Parallels drawn to contemporary moments—“the 2000s, pretty surreal as well.”
  [Laura Phipps | 14:41]:

  "It's always interesting to see the way that history repeats itself or the lessons that have or haven't been learned."

Companion Playlist—The Soundtrack of Surreal

• Curators assembled a playlist echoing the exhibition's spirit:
  • Artists include Miles Davis, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Townes Van Zant, and The Burrito Brothers—tracks that are surreal, experimental, or cross-genre in character.
    [Dan Nadella | 15:28]:

    "A fun playlist of everybody from Miles Davis to Jimi Hendrix to the Doors to Townes Van Zant... that often have surreal lyrics or are coming from across genre, across the spectrum of genres."

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "Even if you think about somebody like Elvis Presley suddenly appearing on television, that in itself was a kind of surreal moment."
  — Dan Nadella | 03:34

• "You get off of the elevator, and this is what sort of confronts you. These three incredible sculptures that... really sets the stage for the understanding of this show as something other than historic surrealism."
  — Laura Phipps | 09:51

• "Camels look strange. Let's not kid ourselves... encountering these things also, what would they be doing in an art museum... we want people to be slightly destabilized and realize that this is not art historical surrealism. This is us telling you, get ready."
  — Dan Nadella | 11:09

• "It's always interesting to see the way that history repeats itself or the lessons that have or haven't been learned... these artists from the 1960s are actually giving us new ways to imagine moving forward from our own moment as well."
  — Laura Phipps | 14:41

• "A really interesting group of voices that could kind of sing together, but, you know, sometimes they harmonize and sometimes it's a little dissonant. And that's the beauty of it."
  — Dan Nadella | 07:13

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Important Timestamps

• Surrealism—What Is It? [01:09–02:32]
• Surrealism from Europe to America [02:32–03:30]
• Why Surrealism Caught On [03:30–04:26]
• Exhibition Features and Selection [05:16–07:13]
• Curatorial Process [07:13–08:38]
• Time Frame Rationale [08:38–09:46]
• Signature Camel Sculptures [09:51–11:09]
• Revisionist Survey/Expanded Canon [12:01–12:52]
• 1960s Surrealism's Cultural Resonance [13:13–15:15]
• Companion Playlist Details [15:15–15:52]

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Tone and Takeaway

The discussion is accessible, witty, and thoroughly engaged with both art history and contemporary relevance. The curators encourage destabilization and reconsideration, inviting visitors and listeners to see the 1960s—and their own time—through fresh, surrealist eyes.

Exhibition Info:
60s Surreal is on view at the Whitney Museum through January 19th, 2026.

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This summary conveys the core substance, fresh perspectives, and vivid atmosphere of the episode, making it ideal for listeners who want a thoughtful, comprehensive grasp of the conversation.

Transcript

[Dan Nadella]

Foreign.

[David Fuerst]

This is all of it on WNYC. I'm David Fuerst in for Alison Stewart. The 1960s in America can be described in many ways turbulent, revolutionary, fast changing. But according to a new exhibition at the Whitney, the 60s 60s were also surreal. 60s surreal is the major show on view at the museum this fall. It makes the case that underneath the veil of Pop art, surrealism was a defining movement during a turbulent decade in American culture. 60s surreal opened today at the Whitney Museum of American Art. It's on view through January 19th. And two curators, Dan Nadell and Laura Phipps, are here now. Welcome.

[Laura Phipps]

Thank you.

[Dan Nadella]

Thank you for having us.

[David Fuerst]

So first, we hear that word surreal a lot, but for those of us without the art history degree, Dan, what does surrealism mean in the art world?

[Dan Nadella]

Well, surrealism was a movement that began between World War I and World War II in Paris. And it was really about accessing the unconscious to come up with radical ideas about protest and sexuality and dreams and all the things possible from sort of from a dream state and things we wouldn't otherwise imagine.

[David Fuerst]

And, Laura, how would you describe the general artistic aesthetic of surrealism, or is that hard to put your finger on?

[Laura Phipps]

It is wonderfully hard to put your finger on. And we really thought about, you know, this history of surrealism coming out of Paris in the 1920s, the way it's sort of morphed and changed over decades and how, in a way, both historic surrealism as an art and literary movement and the surreal as sort of this small s idea of what is surreal, what is weird or off kilter in our world, how those were really part of the groundwater that artists in the 1960s were accessing. So the aesthetics of sort of historic surrealism, this idea of collage putting together ideas that maybe were unconsciously accessed, comes out in different ways for artists of the 1960s.

[David Fuerst]

I want to pick up a little bit on what you were just saying there. In some texts on the wall at the show, you write that surrealism was, quote, in the groundwater of American culture. Dan, how did surrealism travel from Paris to America?

[Dan Nadella]

Well, it was catnip for filmmakers and graphic designers and illustrators and writers and musicians after World War II. So you have filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock literally using Salvador Dali in one of his films. And you have 1950s films, romance films and science fiction films using the unlikely dream states to, you know, to telegraph that things are not what they seem here in America. And graphic designers and illustrators were likewise using those motifs to show us that other things were possible outside the realm of rationality.

[David Fuerst]

Why do you think surrealism was able to take hold in American culture?

[Dan Nadella]

I think after World War II, people were disoriented and had seen something that was far beyond what they ever could have imagined in World War II, came back and needed a sort of release valve. And so putting in popular culture things that were other things that were beyond the norm. Even if you think about somebody like Elvis Presley suddenly appearing on television, that in itself was a kind of surreal moment. So people needed a release valve and to feel like the strangeness of what they'd just been through might be reflected in the art and the culture they were absorbing.

[David Fuerst]

Interesting to hear you talking about Elvis Presley appearing and that feeling a surreal moment. Because now. Right. He's been around forever. We don't think of it as an unusual or surreal experience.

[Dan Nadella]

That's right. I mean, a lot of things in our exhibition reference the Commonplace. We have a gallery devoted to visions of the city, but also visions of television, the sudden presence of a new consciousness in our living rooms. You know, we think of screens, the screens all around us right now as being completely everyday, but at the time, they were new incursions into our reality.

[David Fuerst]

Well, Laura, the new show, 60s Surreal, displays work from over 100American artists, including Faith Ringgold, David Hammons, Diane Arbus, all of whom engaged in surrealism in some way during the 1960s. Can you tell us about this work that is on display in this show? And is it unusual for all of it to be grouped together in this way?

[Laura Phipps]

Sure. That's one of the really exciting things about this exhibition in particular is, you know, over the past, I don't know, 15, 20 years, there's been amazing scholarship, There have been amazing exhibitions that have really dug deep into particular areas of the 1960s, looking at the work of black radical women, the work of Chicago images, all of these different artists that maybe weren't as well known in the time that they were working. And we've really benefited from that amazing scholarship, these museum shows, to sort of look across the country, to look across different modes of making and see what the connections are that artists have, and to really try and bring together a show that really canvases a more fuller picture of American art of the 1960s. So there are a lot of, I think, surprising juxtapositions of artists gallery to gallery. We have so many different mediums within any particular gallery, but we're including works of, say, filmmakers Gunvor Melson and Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wylie in a gallery also with James Rosenquist. So Thinking about these artists that we think we know really well, Claes, Oldenburg, Rosenquist, with these more experimental filmmakers that maybe weren't as well known and seeing how they were actually thinking about many of the same ideas around mass media and the domestic life.

[David Fuerst]

And, you know, when you're putting together a show like this and trying to tell a story, Dan, how do you decide who has to be in the show, who doesn't make it in? There are over 100 artists in the show. But what is the process like to identify and narrow down which artists really sum up what you're trying to show here?

[Dan Nadella]

Well, we started with a lot of historical research. We looked at exhibitions all over the country and artist groups, self formed artist groups and exhibitions from 1958 to 1972. And we started looking at and seeing artists repeating across these exhibitions and groups. So we found kind of protagonists throughout the country that felt essential. And then we started thinking about, well, what other kinds of voices were adjacent to these shows. Who else was thinking about, let's say, bodily abstraction or the art of protest or pre feminist thinking, and started looking at, well, okay, this person is thinking about it this way, this other artist is thinking about it another way. Let's put them together so that we can kind of build a complementary and additive vision of the 1960s. So it wasn't. It was about finding the right combinations of artists to speak to one another across time, really, and across space. So it became less about assembling the greatest hits, let's say, and more about assembling a really interesting group of voices that could kind of sing together, but, you know, sometimes they harmonize and sometimes it's a little dissonant. And that's the beauty of it.

[David Fuerst]

And we're talking about that time frame, 1958 to 1972. Why did you pick on this time frame to capture this movement of surrealism?

[Laura Phipps]

Sure. Well, you know, there is sort of the common phrase, the long 60s, which captures a little before 1960, a little after 1969. And what we sort of saw is that there were these aesthetic shifts happening in the late 1950s, in particular, thinking about artists that were working in Northern California and coming out of May, maybe beat poetry, and how that shifted aesthetics. And that seemed to be a through line in many of the artists. 1972 became sort of our end date in thinking about again another sort of shift in aesthetics back to a maybe more formal understanding of art making. So we let the art sort of guide us in those time frames and also the sort of socio political feelings of the 58 to 72 helped us sort of create those limits. You have to create limits in a show this large.

[David Fuerst]

Right. Give me a sense for what kind of art can we see here? What type of work can we expect?

[Laura Phipps]

Sure. Well, I'll start with what you see when you get off the elevator. The first works in the show are three sculptures by the artist Nancy Graves, who made these incredible sculptures of camels. They come across as real live camels in the gallery, but they are actually sculptures that she made after years of sort of interest in taxonomy, in zoology, and in particular in spending time in Morocco and seeing the way that these animals move and live in the world. And came back into her studio and thought, these animals, these creatures, are surrealist objects within themselves and created these incredible sculptures. So you get off of the elevator, and this is what sort of confronts you. These three incredible sculptures that, you know, for Dan and I and our curatorial colleagues, really sets the stage for the understanding of this show as something other than historic surrealism, something other than maybe your textbook 1960s.

[David Fuerst]

It's also a challenging notion that you're bringing up because you first described these statues as looking very realistic, but you're saying the very notion of a camel, a camel is surreal in itself.

[Dan Nadella]

Well, camels look strange. Let's not kid ourselves. You know, they've got humps, they've got legs that move funny, and awfully long necks. And encountering these things also, what would they be doing in an art museum, for that matter? This is not where they belong. So we want people to be slightly destabilized and realize that this is not art historical surrealism. This is us telling you, get ready. You're about to enter into something destabilizing and fun and interesting and kind of mind blowing at times.

[David Fuerst]

I could use some destabilizing. I think we can help with that. The name of the Show Again, it's 60s surreal. This is open as of today at the Whitney. And this is running through January.

[Laura Phipps]

Through January 19th.

[David Fuerst]

Yes, January 19th. The Whitney describes the show as a revisionist survey. Why is that? What is revisionist about it?

[Laura Phipps]

Sure. Well, I think that, you know, if you were invested in sort of art historical canon, the 1960s is about pop art. It's about minimalism, maybe moving into conceptual art. And we all know that there's more to history and there's more to art than the things that are in our textbooks. And this show is really an attempt to look at what those other things are sort of, you know, look around and through all of the sort of isms of art history and just see what it was that artists were making that isn't categorized by art history necessarily.

[David Fuerst]

We know about. When we talk about the 60s in America, everyone conjures up all of these immediate things and how the decade changed American culture. Why were the 60s such a potent time for, I guess, all of that change but for surrealist art in this case in this country?

[Dan Nadella]

Well, it's a good question. I think what you had starting in the late 1950s. 1950s, it was the largest population of people going to college, for one thing. So there was an enormous educational boost. And also the first time in really in civilization that people had the kind of loose change to live cheaply and be bohemians across the country. So you had this enormous youth boom, or really the baby boom, and they were looking for new ways forward. They didn't want to repeat what their parents were doing. They didn't want to sort of be children of the Depression and of war again, although of course they were. And also, suddenly there was a war on, and there was the civil rights movement and the sexual revolution. All these things that were happening as an entire generation began to try and change the course of the country and for themselves. And so everything was up for grabs. You know, religion, civil rights, protest. All these things were happening all at once. And so how. How better to deal with that than to express the kind of irrationality of it all in visual art and 60s.

[David Fuerst]

Were a surreal time. You could argue that the 2000s, pretty surreal as well.

[Laura Phipps]

Sure. I mean, it's always interesting to see the way that history repeats itself or the lessons that have or haven't been learned. I think one thing that's been really exciting for us to think about and see is the way that artists explore society around them, the way that they sort of push on institutions, push on the sort of understanding of what it even means to be an artist. And, you know, we love to think that these artists from the 1960s are actually giving us new ways to imagine moving forward from our own moment as well.

[David Fuerst]

And just before we wrap up, I know you put together a companion playlist for this exhibition. Dan, who are some of the artists that you included, and why do you think this really lends itself to surrealism in the show?

[Dan Nadella]

Well, we put together a fun playlist of everybody from Miles Davis to Jimi Hendrix to the Doors to Townes Van Zant. Wow. To the. The Burrito Brothers to all kinds of fun tunes that often have surreal lyrics or are coming from across genre, across the spectrum of genres.

[David Fuerst]

Well, we have been. Disgusting. Disgusting. I'm getting surreal right here. We have been discussing 60s surreal. A new exhibition opened today at the Whitney. This is on View through January 19th. Our guests have been Whitney curators Dan Nadella and Laura Phipps. Thank you both very much for being here today.

[Laura Phipps]

Thank you.

[Dan Nadella]

Thank you.

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