HANS BELLMER AT THE MET GALA 2026

A dress inspired by the work of Hans Bellmer has made its Met Gala debut. Cardi B’s dress, created by designer Marc Jacobs, pays homage to the artist’s “La Poupée,” which were life-sized adolescent female dolls constructed and photographed between 1934 and 1936. The Met’s Costume Art exhibition, which was the jumping off point for this year’s Gala, also features a Bellmer work as it seeks it explore the relationship between art, dress, and the body. Costume Art runs from May 10, 2026 – January 10, 2027, and further information can be found on the Met’s website here.

Hans Bellmer
La Poupée [“The Doll”] (p. 78, top right, variant)
1935
Hand-colored vintage gelatin silver print
3 5/8 x 2 1/2 inches (9.2 x 6.3 cm)
(BELL 106)

NEW HUMANS: MEMORIES OF THE FUTURE AT NEW MUSEUM

A new exhibition is opening at the recently expanded New Museum. New Humans: Memories of the Future features over 150 artist in this inaugural exhibition, including drawings by Unica Zürn from Ubu Gallery. It traces the concept of “humanity” in the 20th and 21th centuries, as influenced by the drastic changes in technology and society. The exhibition opens on March 21st, and further information can be found here.

Unica Zürn
Untitled (double-sided drawing) ca. 1960
Ink on paper
11 7/8 x 8 1/2 inches (30.2 x 21.6 cm)
Numbered in pencil on each side
(ZURN 146)

BELLMER NAUMAN PONDICK: MATERIAL DESIRE AT NUNU FINE ART

Ubu Gallery is pleased to collaborate on a new exhibition with Nunu Fine Art and Sonnabend, New York. Bellmer Nauman Pondick: Material Desire opens on March 6 focuses on three artists that use the body as subject and material to explore the implications of the psychic self. The exhibition continues until May 30, 2026 and further information can be found here.

Hans Bellmer
La Poupée
(“The Doll”)
1935
Vintage gelatin silver print
2 5/8 x 2 3/8 inches (6.7 x 6 cm)
(BELL 264)

HARKAWIK: PHOTOS ON FRIDGES

Ubu Gallery is pleased to take part in an exhibition at Harkawik’s New York location. The gallery’s Photos on Fridges features the fridge, a humble yet necessary household appliance, as a pedestal for art. The works featured here are intimate- photographs of bodies, homes, and other parts of everyday life. The exhibition continues until January 4, 2026, and further information can be found on Harkawik’s website here.

Hans Bellmer
Study for Histoire de l’oeil [“Story of the Eye”], by Georges Bataille
1946
Vintage gelatin silver print
2 1/8 x 2 1/8 inches (5.4 x 5.4 cm) – image
3 1/4 x 2 1/4 inches (8.3 x 5.7 cm) – sheet
(BELL 272.10)

PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART – DREAMWORLD: SURREALISM AT 100

Ubu Gallery is pleased to take part in Dreamworld: Surrealism at 100. Hosted by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this exhibition arrives at its only stop in the United States after Centre Pompidou and three other European venues. It will feature over 200 works celebrating the 1924 publication of Breton’s “Manifesto of Surrealism”, including books and collages by Hans Bellmer, Claude Cahun, Georges Hugnet, and Jindřich Štyrský. The exhibition is slated to run from November 8, 2025 to February 16, 2026. Further information can be found on the museum’s website here.

Hans Bellmer
La Poupée 2
[“The Doll”] 1936
Maquette with (23) twenty-three original photographs
Original binding conceived by Georges Hugnet and executed by Louis Christy
4 7/8 x 4 x 1 7/8 inches (12.4 x 10.2 x 4.8 cm)
Signed, dated & dedicated “à Georges Hugnet comme signe de mon admiration et de mon amitié. Hans Bellmer 1937”
(BELL 394)

KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF ART: SEEDS OF REGIONALISM

Ubu Gallery is pleased to contribute to a new exhibition at the Knoxville Museum of Art. Seeds of Regionalism – The Clauss Legacy: Early Modernism in the South honors Alfred and Jane West Clauss, and focuses on their groundbreaking 1939 project, “Little Switzerland.” The exhibition continues until November 9, 2025 and further information can be found on the museum’s website here.

Alfred Clauss
Three (3) Chair Drawings
Red – 7 1/2 x 13 6/8 inches (19.1 x 34.9 cm)
Black – 7 1/2 x 14 2/8 inches (19.1 x 36.2 cm)
Yellow – 11 2/8 x 14 2/8 inches (28.6 x 36.2cm)
(CLAU 3)

HAMBURGER KUNSTHALLE: RENDEZVOUS OF DREAMS. SURREALISM AND GERMAN ROMANTICISM

With RENDEZVOUS OF DREAMS, the Hamburger Kunsthalle presents a comprehensive exhibition on international Surrealism to mark the 100th anniversary of the movement’s founding, exploring German Romanticism as one of Surrealism’s most important spiritual affinities. Starting with a pair of paintings presented for the first time at the Kunsthalle, over 230 Surrealist icons by major and emerging Surrealists such as Max Ernst, Meret Oppenheim, René Magritte, André Masson, Salvador Dalí, Dorothea Tanning, Paul Klee, Valentine Hugo, Victor Brauner, Toyen, and many others, presented in novel contexts and exciting juxtapositions, meet over 70 masterpieces of German Romanticism, including those by Caspar David Friedrich and Philipp Otto Runge, as well as Romantic poetry. 

After participating in exhibitions at the Centre Pompidou, Musée National d’Art Moderne, and Fundación Mapfre in Madrid, Ubu Gallery is happy to continue being part of this project. The exhibition at Hamburg’s Kunsthalle will run from June 12 to October 12, 2025. More details are available on their website here.

A TALE OF A TUB: ANAGRAMMA TICS – ANNE KRUL with TABEA NIXDORFF and UNICA ZÜRN

Ubu Gallery is pleased to take part in a new exhibition at Rotterdam’s A Tale of a Tub. From the venue’s website: “Anagramma Tics: Anne Krul with Tabea Nixdorff and Unica Zürntakes the form of an unconventional retrospective, wherein the various facets and outputs of krul’s practice—anagram poetry, art making, education, organising, collaboration and intergenerational dialogue—will be on show for many to see for the very first time. To make this exhibition, krul has worked with artist and typographer Tabea Nixdorff, a pre-existing collaboration which has seen the pair produce new audio works while also translating krul’s anagram poems—a type of poetry made with the guiding principle that either each line or each verse is written with the same set of letters as all other lines or verses in the poem—into spatial installations and sculptures, building on their overlapping interests in poetry and found language, as well as the restrictions inherent to writing.

Joining krul and Nixdorff is Unica Zürn (1916–1970), an author and artist remembered for her works of anagram poetry and automatic drawing. A key component of the exhibition will be a reading space centred around an anagram poetry archive that krul has been building since the 1990s, within which Zürn acts as both a guiding inspiration and leading figure. To honour Zürn’s influence on krul, to ‘sit alongside each other’, as krul puts it, a collection of her publications and works on paper will be on display, evidencing the dialogical commitment inherent to krul’s practice: if it wasn’t for Zürn, she notes, she wouldn’t be making anagram poems.”

The exhibition is open from May 31 – August 24, 2025, and further information can be found on A Tale of a Tub’s website here.

Unica Zürn
Anagramm aus der zeile
[“Anagram from the Line”] 1967
Ink on board
12 1/4 x 10 1/4 inches (31.1 x 26 cm)
Signed, dated & inscribed on recto
(ZURN 148)

Installation images courtesy of Gunnar Meier.

CENTRE CULTURA CONTEMPORÀNIA: EN EL AIRE CONMOVIDO…

Ubu Gallery is pleased to be taking part in the traveling exhibition En el aire conmovido…. The exhibition’s second leg takes it to Barcelona’s Centre de Cultura Contemporània, where it will remain open from May 8 – September 28, 2025. The exhibition focuses on Federico García Lorca and his concept of duende, a state of heightened emotion, and showcases over 300 works that explore emotion in all its many forms. Further information about the exhibition can be found on the CCCB’s website here.

Hans Bellmer
Untitled
(Hands Triptych), 1933-34
Three (3) vintage gelatin silver prints
Each approximately 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 inches (6.4 x 6.4 cm)
Facsimile signature blind stamp applied by artist’s estate
(BELL 457)

JUDIT REIGL: L’ENVOL. DESSINS ET PEINTURES (1954-2012)

Ubu Gallery is pleased to take part in the traveling exhibition at LAAC-Lieu d’Art et action contemporaine, Dunkerque Judit Reigl, l’envol. Dessins et peintures (1954-2012) celebrates the artist’s paintings and drawings. The exhibition continues until September 14, 2025.

Judit Reigl
Untitled
Precursor to Outburst series, 1955-57
November-December 1954
Ink on paper
8 1/2 x 11 inches (21.6 x 27.9 cm)
Signed & dated on recto
(REIG 61)