Surreal Things at Guggenheim Museum Bilbao on artrepublic.com
Exhibition running from Feb 29 2008
until Sep 07 2008
Surreal Things displays more than 200 of the most extraordinary objects ever designed to explore the impact of this avant-garde movement—arguably the most influential of the 20th century—on architecture, design and the decorative arts. Alongside objects designed by Elsa Schiaparelli are works by Meret Oppenheim, de Chirico’s costumes and set designs for Diaghilev’s Le Bal, the ceramics and paintings of Joan Miró and Jean Arp, Alberto Giacometti’s sculptures and not forgetting the jewels produced by Alexander Calder, or Carlo Mollino’s furniture, mounted in a unique theme-based setting designed especially for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. A setting specially designed for Bilbao by London-based architects Metaphor, and inspired by the Surrealists’ own stunningly exciting mise-en-scènes , will transform the entire third floor of Frank Gehry’s building. Against this spectacular backdrop, visitors will be able to see how the last century’s most influential avant-garde art movement actually developed from its beginnings in the political ideology of Karl Marx and the psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud. The highly unusual, and often very familiar objects on display are by some of the movement’s leading figures, including Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, Jean Arp, Joan Miro, Giorgio de Chirico, Isamu Noguchi, Eileen Agar, Jean Michel Frank, Frederick Kiesler, and Max Ernst. Divided into five theme-based sections, called “The Ballet”, “Surrealism and the Object”, “Nature made Strange”, “Displaying the Body” and “The Illusory Interior”, Surreal Things highlights the evolution of Surrealism from its beginnings as a politically radical avant-garde art movement to its transformation into a worldwide cultural phenomenon which, in just a single decade, revolutionized the world of art, design, fashion, advertising, jewelry, photography, the movies, and the decorative arts and which, even today, continues to exert a good deal of influence on many fields of artistic and cultural endeavor. Salvador Dalí, one of the movement’s most controversial artists, generated no little tension with the original Surrealist group through his commitment to the world of objects and commerce. Dalí summed up his desire to create objects thus: “I try to create fantastic things, magical things, things like in a dream. The world needs more fantasy. Our civilization is too mechanical. We can make the fantastic real, transforming it into something more real than what really exists.” But Dalí was not the only artist criticized by others in the movement for his relation with the world of commerce. When Joan Miró and Max Ernst created a series of stage settings and costume designs for the Russian Ballet, André Breton, the movement’s founder, and one of the most intransigent defenders of the original Surrealist spirit as an aesthetic movement using automatic techniques to reflect the dream world, launched a ferocious attack. OPENING HOURS:Tue -Sun: 10.00 - 20.00 Image Captions: Image 1: René Magritte (1898 – 1967), Prohibida su reproducción (La reproduction interdite), 1937, Óleo sobre lienzo, 81 x 65 cm, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam Image 2: Man Ray (1890 – 1976), Modelo reclinada sobre la Carretilla (Brouette) de Óscar, Domínguez, 1937, Copia a la gelatina de plata, 13,9 x 16,5 cm, Victoria and Albert Museum, Londres Image 3: Salvador Dalí (1904 – 1989) & Edward James (1907 – 1984), Sofá en forma de los labios de Mae West, 1938, Estructura de madera tapizado con satén, 86, 5 x 183 x 81, 5 cml, The Trustees of The Edward James Foundation If you were interested in this article you may like to…Find our more about Surrealist art movement and Surrealist artist like Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte in our artist biography and art term definition sections. These sections offer a fascinating insight into the art world and we are adding to them all the time.  |
