In Wonderland: The Surrealist Adventures of Women Artists in Mexico and the United States

A celebration of female surrealists from Mexico and the United States is Los Angeles County Museum of Art's (LACMA) landmark exhibition entitled after Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Diverging from their male and politically oriented French roots, the movement's female counterparts focused on personal identity and exploration such as the disruption of identity, the disorientation of reality, and the pursuit of the revelatory. On display are paintings, sculptures, works on paper, photographs and film that illustrate the female surrealist's transcending of gender and geographical barriers and eventual influence on the feminist movement.

This first large scale international exposition of its kind in the United States showcases 175 exceptional works of art, spanning over 40 years, from the 1930's to 1970's.

LACMA's American art curator and co-curator of the exhibit, Ilene Fort includes 47 iconic female surrealist artists such as Frida Kahlo, Lee Miller, Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, Dorothea Tanning, and Louise Bourgeois.

Many of Frida Kahlo's (1907-1954) works were unobtainable for the exhibit. Nevertheless, one of her most compelling self-portraits representing Catholic and Mesoamerican symbolism, Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940), almost continuously on loan around the world since 1990, is on view at LACMA's exhibit.

One third of the art pieces come from Mexico, however, some will be on view only at LACMA due to loan agreements.

The exhibit runs through May 6, 2012, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion, located at 5905 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036. For more information call (323) 857-6000 or visit www.lacma.org

The exhibit will then travel to the Musee National des Beaux-arts du Quebec City, Canada, from June 7 to September 3, 2012, and to the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, Mexico, from September 27, 2012 through January 13, 2013.

Organized by LACMA and the Museo de Arte Moderno in Mexico City, Mexico through a generous grant from the Terra foundations for American Art, a special collaboration of the National Council for Culture and the Arts (Conaculta, Mexico) and National Institute of Fine Arts (INBA), Mexico. The Los Angeles exhibition was in part made possible by Mr. and Mrs Raymond Horowitz Foundation for the Arts and is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.