Beginning April 8, FLATFILEgalleries presents IN THE SHADOW OF THE SURREAL and its sub-show EXQUISITE CORPSE with a reception from 5-9pm. The exhibits will continue through May 6. On April 22, the gallery will observe its 5th anniversary with a celebration from 6 until 8pm. IN THE SHADOW OF THE SURREAL and EXQUISITE CORPSE pay homage to the Dada and Surrealist movements, featuring art inspired by such luminaries as Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, and Jean Cocteau.

Gallery artist Wafaa Bilal, from Iraq, who is the featured artist of IN THE SHADOW OF THE SURREAL, has been stunning audiences with his interactive video installations for the past several years. Here, Bilal premieres a new projection piece and a previously unseen interactive installation created in collaboration with Shawn Lawson, as well as eight new large-scale digital photographs. Gallery artist Frank Zirbel, whose art is often inspired by historic artistic movements, here gives a nod to the surrealists, while Gagik Aroutiunian shows paintings that might have been created during the actual surrealist movement. Garry Szumsky and Luis Delatorre, who are guest artists, each show their own brand of Surrealist inspired work; Szumsky's black and white digital manipulations are at once realistic and bizarre, and Delatorre, who has completed several large mural projects in Chicago, creates paintings in the mystical realism style, another derivative of the Surrealist movement. Guest artist Jozef Sumichrast's bronze sculptures will add a third dimension to the exhibit.

In the lower gallery, gallery artists Barbara Crane and Gail Kaplan, and guest artist Suzanne Szucs interpret the Surrealist term "Exquisite Corpse" with nature mort photographs. Suspended over the flat files will be a 3D surrealist piece by the installation team SUMO and in the project room, Lucien Clergue's beautiful black and white photographs from the filming of Surrealist Jean Cocteau's Testament of Orpheus and the book of the same name, will line the walls, while a monitor will continually show the film. The project room will also house a new wall sculpture by gallery artist Fredrick Holland.