Surrealism Beyond Borders
I felt like I was sleepwalking through the show the way I sleepwalk through the British Museum. Ancient artefacts just don’t do it for me. Which was frustrating because I love surrealism, and it’s intention to be radical and revolutionary through the use of unreal, surprising and jarring, often incongruous juxtapositions and nonsensical imagery. Or in blunt English: screwy shit.
The thing about screwy shit is that the shock value usually wears off with time. When I was in school I couldnt get enough of Dalí, Buñuel, Maya Deren, etc. But decades later I’ve seen it all, so maybe I’m just old and jaded. Although the infamous Un Chien Andalou eyeball scene still makes my skin crawl!
If you haven’t seen that film, then you’ll have to look elsewhere. The show is intentionally absent of most of the usual works you’d expect. A not entirely detrimental decision.
According to Tate, the purpose is to “show how artists around the world have been inspired and united by surrealism.” It’s an exhaustive representation of works from places beyond Paris, the spiritual home of the surrealists, and it was fascinating to see contributions to the genre from South America circa 1930 and Japan in the 50s.
So while I did manage to find a few fantastic things that were new to me, there wasn’t much context to help me understand how those artists were responding to their environments. Essentially, it’s just room after room of screwy shit and by the end of the exhibit I felt worn down.
For the casual art goer, the show serves as a good introduction to surrealism. There will be plenty that’s new and therefore surprising, but you’ll need to do some extra research online to see some of the most well known works of the genre. Which you definitely should do.
At Tate Modern (@Tate) until 29 Aug