Eyes and horns

6 MINUTES

A minotaur shifts shapes and sexes in this ferociously original animation

Pablo Picasso created the series of 100 etchings known as the Vollard Suite between 1930 and 1937. Art historians often describe this period as the apex of his canonical career. The suite’s images are partly inspired by classical busts and motifs, including that of the mythological Minotaur, which had the head of a bull and the body of a man. The series is also – and far more controversially – inspired by an affair that Picasso initiated with a then 17-year-old Marie-Thérèse Walter when was he was 46.

In her short Eyes and Horns, the South Korean director and animator Chaerin Im channels her ‘anger and frustration’ with the Westernised, male-dominated tilt of the art world into a kinetic, intensely immersive audiovisual experience. As a percussive score pounds in the background, Im contorts and transforms the hyper-masculine form of a minotaur in a flurry of visual sequences that obscure lines between male and female. In doing so, she provides a welcome provocation – a shrewd critique delivered with the force of a guttural scream.

Director: Chaerin Im

Producer: Fabian Driehorst

Composer: Karie Jacobson

Website: Fabian&Fred

Explore more

A large rock with carvings and natural indentations surrounded by green foliage.

The lost art of making a petroglyph

Inspired by 6,000-year-old rock art in Norway, I decided to create a new carving closer to home

by Rémy Noë

A woman drawing on an easel in a courtyard with greenery and a modern glass building in the background.

To become more attuned to the world around you, try sketching outdoors

Video by The Museum of Modern Art

Abstract drawing of a face with vibrant colours, featuring red cheeks and a patterned necklace on an orange background.
Psyche Exclusive

Born of memory and mystery – the otherworldly works of a self-taught, unhoused artist

Directed by Tal Amiran

Illustration of a simple cartoon figure with a bob haircut wearing a green crop top and red skirt on a light background.

Growing pains, bras, size, sex – a group of women get candid about all things boobs

A film by Subarna Dash and Vidushi Gupta

Impressionist painting of a green Japanese bridge over a pond with water lilies surrounded by lush greenery in a garden setting.

Monet understood the elusive power of a place’s atmosphere

The gist of a scene or place can subtly alter our very sense of being, an affecting quality captured by Monet’s paintings

by Pablo Fernandez Velasco

Photo of a hand using a black marker to redact text on paper several words are boxed to be emphasised.
POETRY

Reignite your creative fire with blackout poetry – the art of framing what’s already there

Directed by Andrew Lavers

An Aboriginal painter depicts scenes from her youth in this beautiful short

A film by Grace Kemarre Robinya and Jonathan Daw

Surreal photo of a person wearing glasses and a hat with their face distorted, leaning towards a camera in a hallway.

This sculptor finds deep weirdness – not divinity – in the human form

Directed by Ben Berman