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It's hard to imagine today when we're constantly barraged with algorithm-selected content in the palm of our hands, but until the 1960s, the concept of turning on the TV and seeing images of Count Dracula one second and then the Vietnam War the next moment was incomprehensible. For the first time, people were seeing images of political assassinations, the oppression of protests and the carnage of war in their living rooms.
Artists made sense of this surreal new reality—or tried to, at least—through sculpture, painting and collages. A new exhibit at The Whitney titled "Sixties Surreal" highlights the work made by more than 100 artists between 1958 and 1972, including a soft toilet, a phallic chair, an uncanny camel and feminist sculptures. The exhibition brings together famed works by artists including Yayoi Kusama, Andy Warhol, Romare Bearden and Jasper Johns, along with some more obscure pieces. See it all through January 19, 2026.
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"This is not your history book Surrealism. It's a show about disorientation and a new attempt to convey meaning through uncannily reconfigured objects and ideas," Dan Nadel, one of the show's curators, said at a preview event.
It's a show about disorientation.
For example, the exhibition begins with a collection of three life-size camels made of wood, steel, burlap and animal skin—they're meant to serve as a reminder that reality is strange. As artist Nancy Graves put it, "Camels shouldn't exist. They have flesh on their hooves, four stomachs, and a dislocated jaw. Yet, with all of the illogical form, the camel still functions." These works were first exhibited at the Whitney in 1969, and they're back once again.
The show continues to explore surrealist tendencies among artists—even if they weren't thinking of their work as "Surreal" with a capital 'S,' as The Whitney's Director Scott Rothkopf explained. These artists used the surreal as a tool to did into weighty topics, such as the civil rights movement, space exploration, fear of nuclear war, drug culture, the Vietnam War, political assassinations and queer and feminist revolutions.
Other pieces in the exhibit include Claes Oldenburg's "Soft Toilet," a melty rendering of the ubiquitous household item; Martha Rosler's feminist collages exploring the commodification of women's bodies; Ed Ruscha's painting of a bird-pencil hybrid; and Yayoi Kusama's chair covered in puffy, phallic-shaped protrusions.
Artists turned to the surreal as a way to navigate the strange, turbulent realities of American life—something that feels quite on-the-nose today.
"By bringing their visionary contributions into fuller view, this exhibition helps to reshape how we understand the art and spirit of the 1960s, as well as our own roiling moment," Rothkopf said in a press release.