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