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Another World: Dalí, Magritte, Miró and the Surrealists “If you were listening carefully, you will have heard the thirteenth stroke of midnight. This is the post-ultimate stroke which transports us to the world of steel swans and tender glaciers, to the fortunate handcuffs of manacled policemen, pouring fire through feathery funnels into the vortex of our desires.” These are the words of Herbert Read in 1937, in his opening remarks at the London Gallery’s Exhibition of Surrealist Objects. His speech, hand-typed, lies in a display case at the Dean Gallery among dozens of other mementos of that time. Read’s words suggest the excitement of a venture into the unknown, the absurd, and the dangerously sexual. Thirteen years after its birth in Paris, Surrealism was seeping its way into British art. Eighty-six years later, it’s a firm favourite. The Dean Gallery’s ambitious exhibition, which tells the story of Surrealism, is remarkable in several ways: it showcases the National Galleries’ own astonishing collection of Dada and Surrealist art, shown in its entirety for the first time; it brings in loans of iconic status; and it reveals a rich seam of British Surrealism largely forgotten by history. Promises that it would be “displayed in an unusual and exciting manner”, however, are not kept. The visceral excitement of Read’s day is made safe behind the usual curatorial conventions. The exhibition starts with Marcel Duchamp’s readymade, Fountain; the infamous urinal points like an anti-art weapon at all those who dare to enter. These first two rooms, devoted to Surrealism’s forerunner, Dada, would make a compelling exhibition in their own right. Man Ray’s iconic metronome and his spiky iron; Picabia’s Girl Born Without A Mother; a handful of Ernsts: this is a textbook introduction to the revolutionary movement. The Keiller Library, sometimes an awkward adjunct to temporary exhibitions, is here the heart and soul of the event. Cheerful music drawn straight from Dada meetings of the 1920s enlivens this seductive treasure trove of journals and curiosities. The one and only issue of Cabaret Voltaire is here, along with anti-Nazi journals whose artists were hunted down. Dada lives and breathes still, one feels, in the dusty air of the shady library. In 1924, with the factionalist Dada movement in disarray, Surrealism was born. André Breton shifted the emphasis away from anarchy and nonsense to embrace the unconscious world of dreams and psychoanalysis. This is where the crowd pleasers make their entrance. The gallery shows off its own impressive clutch of Magritte and Miró paintings, some, like Le Temps Menaçant, now so familiar that their uncanny powers are fading. Dalí’s Exploding Raphaelesque Head, on long-term loan to the gallery, is a thing of beauty, but for high-impact star turns, it’s impossible to match their Dalí show of ten years ago. Ironically, Scotland’s most celebrated painting by the Catalan has just left the country: Glasgow’s Christ Of St John Of The Cross is bound for Atlanta, Georgia, where it will remain until the very day Edinburgh’s exhibition closes. What’s really worth seeing is the section devoted to British Surrealism, bolstered by a strong series of loans. Dedicated groups of Surrealists operated in Birmingham and London. In some other parts, artists were surprised to find themselves so labelled. Some of the strongest images are by three British women, Emmy Bridgwater, Edith Rimmington and Ithell Colquhoun. These are paintings you don’t see every day. |