Although the show presents objects that span the 20th century and move onto contemporary works, there is nothing chronological about the display. The curators must have felt that linear chronology would somehow be anti-surrealist in its conception and not conducive to liberating the viewer from rationality.
On entering, one is treated to a series of plaster busts of the early Surrealist masters, a work realised especially for the show. In the darkened first twist of the exhibition maze, a flock of wooden hangers floats within arm鈥檚 reach above you, and then all colour breaks loose with photographed objects by Paul McCarthy and Cindy Sherman. A multi-coloured saddle conjoined to the handlebars of a kid鈥檚 bike conjures up the ghost of Picasso鈥檚 dark iconic bicycle bull, which itself appears in one of the last reaches of the show.
While other exhibits such as M茅ret Oppenheim鈥檚 Luncheon in Fur, Victor Brauner鈥檚 Wolf-Table and Salvador Dali鈥檚 Lobster Telephone dazzlingly emphasise Surrealism鈥檚 fascination with animality, the exhibition foregrounds anthropomorphism. Evoking Oskar Kokoschka鈥檚 wax mannequin reproduction of Alma Mahler after they broke up in the early 1920s, the exhibition places Hans Bellmer鈥檚 Doll centre stage, right in front of Grandeur nature (1974), a film in which a man falls in love with an inflatable doll. A little later, after walking down a spacious stretch of labyrinth called Rue aux L猫vres (Lip Street), the viewer is offered a seat next to a fully-dressed inflatable doll, to the euphonic sounds of beautifully orchestrated sexual breathing.
For maximum sensual immersion, interpretative documentation is almost entirely absent from the show itself, but is safely deposited in the exquisite catalogue and Dictionary of Surrealist Objects available in the museum bookshop.
The exhibition takes a commendably broad definitional view of Surrealist objects. Breton鈥檚 narrow definition tended to exclude Giacometti鈥檚 early wooden sculptures because they were crafted with the traditional tools of his trade rather than assembled using ordinary workaday objects. Breton favoured ready-mades above Giacometti鈥檚 deeply-evocative biomorphic forms even though Duchamp鈥檚 bottlerack ultimately pays only lip-service to quintessential Surrealist notions such as incongruity, hybridity, metamorphosis, dream, surprise, anxiety, sexuality.
The exhibition is a first-rate, wonderfully refreshing experience. Although it was broad in its reach, I couldn’t help longing for a more expansive display of lesser known contemporary artists. While the notion of clutter is an essential aspect of Surrealism, the exhibition could have done with a little fewer of Th茅o Mercier鈥檚 pornomorphic mugs, and a reduction in the number of Paul McCarthy鈥檚 slightly vapid photographs to make way for more variety.
Erik Martiny
Surrealism and the Object, 30 October 2013 until 3 March 2014, Centre Pompidou, Place Georges Pompidou, 75191 Paris.
Credits:
1. Victor Brauner, loup-table, 1947. Courtesy Centre Pompidou
2. Ed Ruscha, I Can t Not Do That, 2012. Courtesy de l artiste Ed Ruscha Collection
