Book: “The Surreal House”

The concept of the house has deep cultural, psychological, and emotional roots, making it a fertile source of artistic inspiration. Published in conjunction with a Barbican Art Gallery exhibit of the same name, The SurrealHouse, edited by curator Jane Alison, brings together the work of first-generation Surrealists and their associates—including Claude Cahun, who questioned sexual identity and gender roles in Je tends les bras and other artworksas well as more-contemporary allies such as John Hejduk, Gordon Matta-Clark, and Rem Koolhaas. At a time when the rational-minded talked seriously about the house as a “machine for living,” others viewed it as the stuff dreams are made of. $70; Yale University Press