Get Your Costume Ready: SURREAL SALON SOIREE set for SAT, JAN. 27
tickets available at the door!
Baton Rouge Gallery - center for contemporary art (“BRG”) is excited to announce that the Surreal Salon Soiree - the annual celebration of the Surreal Salon exhibition - is set to return in 2024 on January 27! Come be a part of one of the weirdest nights in Louisiana’s capital city with art from across the globe, wild costumes, live music, light projections, and a lot more!
For more than a decade, Surreal Salon has given audiences a unique look at pop-surrealism and lowbrow art from artists across the U.S. and across the globe. This year, the exhibition, curated by world renowned artist Beth Cavener, features more than 60 artists representing 35 U.S. states and six different nations. The Soiree is a way for everyone to, for one night, transform into their own work of art and join the exhibition while celebrating the work of the show’s featured artists.
Surreal Salon 16 is made possible through the generous support of:
PERFORMING LIVE: THE OCTOPUS PROJECT
The joyous sounds that have been made and performed by The Octopus Project have followed a musical path that, since 2002, has veered through blown-out rock’n’roll, vibrant electronics, surreal pop, and expansive psych landscapes. Based in Austin, TX, the group of multi-instrumentalists has released six studio albums, toured venues and festivals worldwide (including Lollapalooza and Coachella) both on their own and as handpicked support for artists as diverse as DEVO and Aesop Rock. As a result, they’ve earned a reputation for explosive live shows and immersive audio-visual experiments.
Also active as composers for video games and film, they were awarded the Special Jury Award for Musical Score at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival for their work on the film Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter.
Their most recent scoring work includes Damsel (starring Robert Pattinson, dir. by Zellner Bros.), 2021's The Disappearance of Toby Blackwood (dir. by Joe Ahern), the Reading Rainbow documentary, Butterfly In the Sky (starring LeVar Burton, dir. by Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb), and the upcoming Zellner Bros. film, Sasquatch Sunset (starring Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg), which will premiere at Sundance 2024.
“There was the occasional appearance of a theremin, and all in all the music made you want to equal parts dance and rock out, with tracks often exploding in a climax of noise. Trippy, psychedelic, colourful… they are all words you could use to describe their sound, the performance and indeed the visuals that accompanied it.” - Larry Heath, The AU Review
“Obviously there are a ton of bands that have a great energy, that are funny and engaging and tear it up during a live show, but The Octopus Project pays so much attention to their visuals that it's truly an integral part of the show. You're not just coming for the music, you're coming for the whole experience.” - Meredith C, KUTX
AND THEN THERE’S THE COSTUMES…
Over the past 15 years, the costumes seen during the Surreal Salon Soiree have taken on a life all their own. From video game characters to woodland creatures, there’s intentionally never a single theme for the Soiree because its more fun to see what happens without one!
We invite everyone to put together their most outlandish costume for the Soiree; in part, because you’ll likely feel completely out of place if you don’t come in costume!
Check out some of our personal favorites from just the most recent Soiree events and then come check out what 2024’s attendees have up their sleeves!
