Tate Modern: Surrealism
Today Jeremy and I took the coach in to London to visit the Tate Modern. We thought we had already missed the 2001 exhibit Surrealism: Desire Unbound, but no! we were in luck. Some four hours later we tottered out, tired and £8·50 poorer but greatly edified. They had one room which was basically gossip about the Surrealist movement members, illustrated with the books of poetry or collage or photographs that resulted. Considering how chaste the period in question (1930s, 1940s) is usually represented in modern fiction, it’s interesting how many permutations they came up with: many in the Surrealism movement believed in what was then called free love and nowadays sometimes called polyamory. The sections on erotic art and erotic objects was good fun. Those crazy Czechs with their lewd photomontages and unspellable names! Jeremy was annoyed that work by female Surrealists got little mention except in the room about Surrealism’s depiction of women. This despite the women’s work being often being more interesting to the modern eye—the men’s talk of muses and idealized lovers looking more dated today (it was more radical in, say, 1930). Bought a floppy clock (the Tate is taking the opportunity to sell more interesting merchandise) and then tried to figure out from where one was supposed to view the Juan Muñoz installation. First we looked down at it from the highest gallery level, but eventually we worked out you are supposed to look at it from below! By this time the gallery was closing so we staggered home feeling very culturally stimulated.