Surrealism Provokes with Arresting Images

Wolf Table shows the animal snarling at its tail

 

Yesterday my friend and I finally made it to "Mythologies: Surrealism and Beyond  -- Masterpieces from Centre Pompidou" at the Hong Kong Museum of Art. I say finally because two weeks ago we went on a Thursday and were surprised to find it is closed on Thursdays! 

In any event we were excited to see the exhibition, but we were soon in for a shock as surrealism explored the subconscious, repressed feelings, mythical animals and a lot of violence against women.

Max Ernst's sculpture with bull fight

The movement was founded in 1924 by French poet Andre Breton when he published the Surrealism Manifesto in Paris, which became the important centre of the movement. From there it spread all over the world, not only in literature, but also in visual arts, film, photography, as well as political thought, philosophy and social theory.

To set the scene of surrealism, the exhibition began with pictures of Paris by night, followed by other themes, such as chimera [fire-breathing monster], minotaur [half man, half bull], and acephale [headless].

One painting by Salvador Dali is in the show, called William Tell painted in 1930. Instead of the Swiss story of the father who risks his son's life by shooting the apple on his head with an arrow, he substitutes his father for castrating the artist, as he had castigated Dali for having an affair with a married woman.

There are a few sculptures in the exhibition, and they are all quite scary. One called Wolf Table by Victor Brauner features a wolf snarling at its own tail, but its body is a wooden table. It's quite jarring, to look at, the wolf or is it a fox? trapped in time looking fierce, and even the back legs of the table look similar to hind legs.

One work by Pablo Picasso is shown -- the debut cover of a magazine called Minotaure. The style of the drawing is very much Picasso, and thankfully the minotaur looks relatively happy, though it is holding a dagger in its right hand looking back at the viewer. 

Magritte's The Rape is disturbing

Another is an etching of a minotaur holding a champagne glass with a man as they enjoy the presence of naked women throwing themselves at them. Is it any wonder it is titled Bacchanal Scene with the Minotaur?

Spaniard Joan Miro also only has a painting shown here, The Bull Fight which is considered a seminal work featuring a textured background and an abstract representation of the bull.

Max Ernst's The King Playing with the Queen features the top half of a bull in an abstract sense, playing with large chess pieces. It was an interesting juxtaposition with a black and white film of a bull fight in Spain.

Rene Magritte was a famous for his painting of a man in a bowler hat with an apple covering his face. But at this show we have the disturbing image of what looks like a woman's face, but instead is her torso. Is it meant to look pleasant with its pastel palette? But the painting is called The Rape. It refers to his mother's suicide when he was 14 years old and he witnessed her body pulled out of the river, her nightgown covering her face, revealing her naked body.

Giacometti's Woman with Her Throat Cut

Another violent image is Alberto Giacometti's Woman with Her Throat Cut, a bronze sculpture of a woman with her legs spread out as she is being brutally murdered. It looks like the perpetrator could be a crustacean or an insect. It just looks disturbing all the same.

Interestingly there is one Jackson Pollock painting that isn't his abstract drip paintings, called The Moon-Woman Cuts the Circle. Earlier in his career the American artist was influenced by Miro and Picasso and was inspired by the idea of using the the unconscious as the source of art.

While it's interesting to see these works, particularly in a strange time like now during the pandemic, the vast majority of the art focus on violence against women. Are these really repressed feelings or was this a group of artists trying to outdo the other with more shocking images?

The show left us quite disturbed, but maybe that was the point as well? Hopefully the surrealism movement will not come back again in a big way. Much of what is going on in the real world is already too hard to comprehend...

Pollack's earlier surrealist painting

Mythologies: Surrealism and Beyond -- Masterpieces from Centre Pompidou

Until September 15

Hong Kong Museum of Art

10 Salisbury Road

Tsim Sha Tsui 

Rockefeller's Beautiful Mansion

The front facade of Kykuit, with a classic Italian style of architecture

We marked the 240th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence yesterday by taking the train to Tarrytown to visit the Rockefeller mansion called Kykuit.

You can't go to the home on your own -- you must join and tour and it's quite strict, emphasizing that you can't take children under five years of age; the guides and staff get nervous when they see babies. Oh and don't bring big bags too -- a knapsack could be considered too big to bring on the grounds.

Our guide was mainland Chinese with the name tag DD Huang, a woman in a red sleeveless dress with tightly curled long hair. Unfortunately for us, her English was not fluent and so many of us on our tour had trouble understanding what she said. Her proficiency in the language also made her warnings sound particularly stern and unapologetic which to some seemed rude or condescending at times.

The back of the home with an extensive garden around it

Nevertheless, this is what we understood from the tour:

John D Rockefeller was the eldest son of six children, but his childhood was difficult. His father was a con man and kept a mistress, having two daughters with her.

Rockefeller was taught by his mother to work hard and he was academically good in school. At 16 he went to business school learning bookkeeping and this skill and talent would serve him well later on in life.

He and his brother William made their money in oil refining, co-founding Standard Oil together and buying up the competition to practically become a monopoly.

William had built a house in the Hudson Valley and suggested John D take a look. He was entranced by the view looking over the Hudson River and bought the land in 1893.

In 1906, John D Rockefeller together with his son Junior, planned and oversaw the construction of Kykuit, which in Dutch means "look out" or "overlook". They moved in two years later.

A swan gracing a pond that leads up to the tea room

Today visiting the house it is a mix of East and West, as John D Rockfeller Sr decorated it, followed by his son Junior and grandson Nelson, who became a senator.

There are a lot of Chinese antiques in the home, as Junior made some trips to China and bought many things, from the pair of stone lions that greet visitors at the front door, to Tang and Qing Dynasty ceramics, even carpets and upholstery have Chinese themes.

In the living room there is a headless Bodhisattva statue, a graceful body, that must have been a serene looking person.

We saw many rooms in the house, except the bedrooms, but the drawing room, the office, dining room, and music room -- that used to have a pipe organ installed in there and was subsequently replaced with a large colourful painting by Joan Miro.

There's also a lot of modern art in the home, particularly in the large garden that includes a swimming pool. There are many sculptures placed around the greenery that contrast with the classical Italian style of the home. Unfortunately we didn't take the garden tour that includes seeing all these pieces.

Modern art pieces contrast with the traditional-looking home

However, we did go into the basement where we saw several tapestries designed by Picasso specifically for Nelson Rockefeller, who had bought a number of his paintings. But because Picasso was a Communist, it wasn't politically correct for them to meet directly.

Nevertheless, Picasso agreed to allow his paintings to be modified into tapestries as long as they were not the same size or colours as the originals. Apparently some 18 of them were completed by a French weaver before Picasso passed away.

There's a mini museum in the home, filled with works by not only the Spanish artist, but also Georges Braque, Toulouse-Lautrec, Andy Warhol and Alexander Calder.

We also saw the changing room complete with a shower that was a precursor to today's modern jets, with a series of pipes that would have spewed water at the body in the middle, as well as the stables complete with a number of carriages and garage with a fleet of antique cars, as well as the home's own gas pump.

It's a pity we weren't allowed to photograph anything inside the house, but outside... another of these strict rules we had to follow.

A view of the Hudson River that Rockefeller fell in love with

But we preferred the view outside as well as the lush greenery. There was also a nine-hole golf course there too -- we spied some Rockefeller descendants whizzing around in golf carts -- their own private space. It turns out several of the Rockefeller families live on some parts of the estate today.

Rockefeller is also well known for his philanthropy, donating to medical research, higher education and the church.

It's hard to imagine someone today could amass as much wealth as the Rockefellers, though people like Li Ka-shing, Cheng Yu-tung, and Stanley Ho Hung-sun come close.

However the trio don't even come close when it comes to being a visionary in philanthropy and creating foundations, and donating land to benefit Hong Kong much, save for universities giving them naming rights to new buildings. Yawn.

We may never see anyone with the same moral stature as John D Rockefeller Senior. While he may be accused of conniving business practices, he did a lot of good not only for New York but for the various communities in the city and around the world in acts of charity that continue today.