Exquisite Corpse

Learn how to create a unique creature with your friends, family, or students through this interactive game!

"The exquisite corpse will drink the new wine." — First sentence of Surrealists that played the game!

Today in my Intro to Art Education class, we made an “Exquisite Corpse.” It was very fun and creative in addition to teaching us how to give instructions/follow directions. The goal of this art game is to create a corpse whose head, torso, and legs are done by different people. Follow these steps to get started:

Step 1

Introduce overview - "We’ll be making a mystical or crazy creature using three sections of paper. The top will be the head, the middle will be the torso, and the bottom will be the legs/feet. Each section will be done by another student."

Step 2

Make students fold the paper into three even sections.

Step 3

Tell students to only draw the head in the top square, with the two marks of the neck slightly extending into the second section. Give students only 3-5 minutes per section.

Step 4

Have students fold the top of the paper with the head away from them and pass it to the next person. Emphasize NO PEEKING!

Step 5

Starting with the two top small neck lines, have students create a torso, then have them extend the ends of their torso lines into the third square.

Step 6

Have students fold the paper away from them again and pass it to the next person with only the last square showing.

Step 7

Tell students to draw legs starting from the two small torso lines. Once done, give each papers back to their first original owners!

Step 8

Have the original owners connect their new creature by adding a background and/or using color to make the drawing cohesive. Voilà! You're done :)

What This Exercise Teaches

This exercise is a great ice-breaker for new students and helps them learn collaborative skills. Not only does it get their creative juices flowing with quick, "on the spot" thinking, it also encourages them to let go and share. Additionally, you as the instructor can note what kind of students they are by the way they interact with the paper and others. Are they imaginative? Do they have trouble coming up with ideas? Do they have possessive issues? Do they enjoy sharing or have a hard time with it? This activity can help you learn more about your students so you're prepared for their needs the rest of the school year.

A Brief History of the Exquisite Corpse

According to the National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance, the Exquisite Corpse was an art game created by the leader of the Surrealist movement, Andre Breton. Surrealism focused on the element of surprise and imaginative scenes. Today, there is a variation of the Exquisite Corpse as a cumulative tale: a tale whose storyline is added onto along the way rather than set from the start. The importance lies in how the storyteller executes it, not what occurs. An exhibition by MoMA also describes this as a “chance-based game” where Surrealist artists distorted human bodies and added unique juxtapositions to create complex, fantastical figures. Their main purpose was to disfigure the body and explore disorientation.