24 Wednesday February 23 2022 | the times
News
STEPHEN CHUNG/ALAMYUntitled by Malangatana Ngwenya of
Mozambique and, below, Salvador
Dali’s famous 1938 Lobster Telephoneplunges headlong into the world of
surrealism. And by the world I mean
the whole planet, because if you
associate this radical movement
primarily with 1920s Paris, prepare for
your organised, art-historical
expectations to be blasted — and
then blown far and wide on the winds.
The 150 or so works that now go on
display in Surrealism: Beyond Borders
have been created by artists from at
least 50 different countries across a
period that spans 80 years.
Surrealism needed to “leave the
narrow confines of [France] and take
on an international character in order
not to wither” declared Benjamin
Péret, the poet. So it did. And it
flourished. It became a global
phenomenon that spread from Alaska
to New Zealand.
Tate curators confront you with a
sprawling non-chronological, non-
geographical jumble of evidence for
this in a show which embraces
everything from the paintings (which
in comparison to other pieces start to
feel almost conventional) to the radio
broadcasts, which served an
important role in
disseminating the
movement’s radical
message. Surrealism
mutated and
adapted
itself to
pretty
much
every
mediu
m. And
the mood ofits many and various manifestations
feels equally broad.
At one moment you might find
yourself contemplating the strange
poetry of a Marcel Duchamp
confection: a birdcage of sugar cubes
carved out of marble and equipped
with a cuttlefish for the absent canary.
At the next you are sharing the sexual
fantasies of Ithell Colquhoun as she
lounges in her bath. But the prevalent
atmosphere of this show is rather
more serious. Revolution lies at the
philosophical core of an aesthetic
which set out to question accepted
authority. Artists all over the world
discovered in surrealism a weapon to
use in their battles for social and
political freedom. Curators focus, for
instance, on Cairo in the first half of
the 1940s, when artists added their
voices to campaigns to get rid of
colonial influence.
Surrealism crops up so often as a
subject for exhibitions that its mad
counter-convention risks turning into
mundane cliché. But there is a
breadth and variety to this new Tate
Modern show which makes it worth
visiting.
For every iconic piece you
recognise — Salvador Dalí’s playfully
dysfunctional lobster telephone —
there will be something that likely
you have never seen before. Listen to
what Ted Joans did with jazz in 1960s
Algeria. The collaborative aspects of
the creation of what one early
proponent described as “images
unimaginable by one mind alone” are
memorably emphasised by a nine-
metre long cadavre exquis drawing –
an unfolding concertina of paper to
which 132 different people
contributed their picture before
folding it up and passing it on. Every
child will recognise this game.
Actually, there is quite a lot to
please the kids in this show: the
anarchic thrill of a steam train
chuffing out of a fireplace; a hyena
that will sit at your knee like a
household pet. But it’s the political
message that emerges as the most
salient. There is reason in the
madness, it emerges. And, as you trek
after the
surrealists as
they scatter and
disperse across
time and space, you
will find yourself
tapping into not only a
sense of shared
humanity but the highest
aspirations of our shared
human hopes.
From Feb 24 to Aug 29,
f tate.org.ukthinside
tomorrowBEING
WARHOL
Paul
Bettany
on playing
the artist
on stage
TIMES2Visual art
Rachel Campbell-Johnston
Surrealism Beyond Borders
Tate Modern
HHHHIAnarchic, sprawling
show turns your
world upside down
The whole world seems to have gone
mad. In Mexico hosts of modern
angels are descending. Monsters are
emerging from mountains in Egypt.
In Mozambique blobby things are
baring their teeth in wild battle. The
Caribbean is spawning strange hordes
of unidentifiable dark beasts.
Tate Modern’s latest exhibition