14/06/2026
How do artists get out of their own heads and just play?
The Surrealists had some fantastic answers to this question. Lovers of chance, surprise, and the bizarre, the early 20th-century group had a cache of games that they used to tap into the unconscious and foster collaborative creativity. Exquisite co**se was among the most popular of the Surrealist games and is still widely enjoyed to this day.
In exquisite co**se (or cadavre exquis), participants take turns drawing sections of a human body on a sheet of paper that is folded such that each participant is unable to see what was drawn before. Short lines extend beyond each hidden section into the next one, indicating where the following artist should pick up so that the parts ultimately connect into one whole—albeit curious—figure. The fact that these drawings were made on paper, an inexpensive and low-stakes material, encouraged wild experimentation. Through this game and others, the Surrealists attempted to access automatism and the parts of their brains not governed by logic.
Read about the history of the game and let us know if you come up with any strange, impossible-looking figures of your own: https://www.artnews.com/feature/exquisite-co**se-what-is-why-do-artists-still-play-it-1234788538/
