What to know about this weekend’s Surreal Salon Soiree 18
The event is affectionately known as "one of the weirdest nights in Baton Rouge." 🖼️👁️
This Saturday, the Baton Rouge Gallery celebrates the art form known as pop surrealism with its annual Surreal Salon Soiree, an event that organizers and fans affectionately declare “one of the weirdest nights in Baton Rouge.”
More than 600 are expected to attend the ticketed party, where revelers arrive in zany costumes to enjoy fine art, live music, two DJs, an open bar and food trucks. It’s the 18th year the event has taken place. Here’s how to get the most out of the one-of-a-kind experience:
The Soiree celebrates BRG’s Surreal Salon exhibit, on view Jan. 2-25
Baton Rouge Gallery’s standing January exhibit is the Surreal Salon, a juried show featuring the pop-surrealist works of regional, national and international artists. More than 800 pieces were submitted for consideration this year. Around 60 works by artists from 18 states and three countries were selected. Keep an eye out for pieces by Baton Rouge creatives Lana Bernard Toniolo, Jennifer Carwile, Alex V. Cook, Gabrielle Dinger, Cara Kearns and Miles Kinney.
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Brooklyn artist Swoon is this year’s guest juror
Printmaker and filmmaker Caledonia Curry, known as Swoon, was responsible for selecting the works in the show. Swoon’s own work is held in significant public and private collections including the Museum of Modern Art, Tate Modern, the Detroit Institute of Arts and MASS MoCA.
“We were really, really excited to have Swoon serve as juror,” BRG executive director Jason Andreasen says. “She is somebody who is certainly loved and respected in the art world, and somebody who has been on our dream wish list of people to bring to Baton Rouge for this show.”
Keep an eye out for one of Swoon’s own works, on loan for the show and installed in the main gallery. She will also deliver a talk about pop surrealism, how the show was selected and her own artistic journey on Monday, January 26, at LSU.
For costumes, think Goodwill, glitter and glue guns
Nearly everyone who attends the Surreal Salon Soiree wears a costume, but not the kind you see at Halloween. Instead, attendees riff on elements of pop surrealism to create fantastical masks, headpieces and doozied-up outfits that could include pop culture references, dreamy imagery and anything just plain unexpected. Many patrons riff on the show itself, Andreasen says. He’s quick to add you don’t need to be an artist to make something fun and festive.
“A lot of people stop in and see the exhibit, and take inspiration from something they see,” he says. For the first time this year, the gallery partnered with the East Baton Rouge Parish Library to host a Surreal Salon Soiree costume crafting workshop earlier this month. If you missed it, don’t fret. Next week, the Library will host a follow-up event for viewing the costumes attendees created.
Just dance
The Surreal Salon is a sensory event, so along with visual art and whimsical costumes, there’s also music. Showy New Orleans band Bon Bon Vivant will perform live on the gallery’s grounds with a sound that’s influenced by New Orleans jazz, blues and funk, along with cabaret and Americana. Baton Rouge-based musician Monoblack will also perform, playing moody electronic music that serves as a kind of surreal soundtrack for the show.
Food, drinks and parking
Quench your thirst at the open bar, and nosh on local fare at two food trucks, Eliza’s Cuban Coffee and Kitchen and Oni 225. The large crowds at the Baton Rouge Gallery make its modest parking lot a challenge, so plan to carpool, rideshare or park at the Knock Knock Children’s Museum or City-Brooks Park and catch the free shuttle.
Tickets are available at the door. For more information, batonrougegallery.org.
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