Surrealism – My London+

The above photo (design by Dali and Edward James) is from the exhibition Objects of Desire: Surrealism and Design which is currently on at the Design Museum, Kensington High Street. I’ve always rather enjoyed surrealist art, especially Salvador Dali, but this exhibition was more about design, though there were a few paintings.

There were a lot Dali’s designs. I didn’t know, for instance, that he designed fabrics nor that he worked with Disney. I particularly liked some of the tables, though the one made using bicycle wheels might have been tricky in a room. Where there brakes?!

This chair is by Gaudi. And I rather like that table behind!

Here is the cycle wheels table!

And for those all important cocktails!

Fashion – the black & white outfit is a design by Dali

Another Dail piece. If I used a compact, I’d love this.

Max Ernst painting

The Uncomfortable Chair – why? Because you can?

After leaving the museum, I followed part of walk I discovered coincided with where I was. I set off to find the former house of Ford Madox Ford, writer of around 80 books. He is the grandson of the Pre-Raphaelite artist, Ford Madox Brown, whose painting Work I admire. It features a street in Hampstead, where I’ve walked, which was quite exciting for me (not sure my friend understood my feelings!).

You can’t see much of the house at 80 Camphill Road in Kensington as it is walled and gated.

It was interesting walking along the back roads of Kensington. The Elephant & Castle Pub/Restaurant looked rather inviting.

And this row of shops down Kensington Church Walk was a nice find.

Mural

St Mary Abbots Church

They already have their Christmas decorations up

Near the church was this garden (see also below)

I love it when two things come together and I find places I’ve not been to before. Streets off the main highways quite often surprise. And I did enjoy the exhibition. Should you be in the area, Holland Park is just behind the Design Museum, with its Japanese Garden. That’s always worth a stroll around.

I came to Surrealism through Salvador Dali’s work and realised that some other painters I admire had ventured into it, like Paul Nash, so I began to look more into this form of expression. Attending this exhibition at Tate Modern I realised knew very little about it!

This picture is devised using photo negatives and a special way of manipulating them.

I found artist used surrealism to express political views or events that happened to them or family. I guess you can say that all art is a form of that, but this is a subversive reality. The image below tells the story of the artist’s grandparents who were killed in the holocaust. I find this painting moving.

Not unexpectedly there were a lot of political/war works here, but also what I call the ‘dream’ art. Finding a meaning in some of this sometimes hard, and with me that doesn’t always matter. I’m not a big fan of Duhamp (he of The Urinal found art, or ‘readymade’. See here for more on that piece). However, this piece below did rather fascinate me. The way he uses readymade here – a metal cage, a piece of cuttlefish, wooden perches, and sugar cubes represent stone boulders – I rather like.

I never really know what I’m going to like in art, which means I am always surprised. I can admire the painterly fashion of old masters. Their technique is mind blowing, but do I like them? Not usually. All those portraits, dark backgrounds aren’t to my taste. My preference is for art from the Pre-Raphaelite’s onwards. The Victorian era holds a particular fascination for me. All the artists and writers I admire seem to converge there for me. If I could live in another era, though, it would be the 1920’s because of the fashion, dancing and music! I think watching Upstairs Downstairs on TV in the ’70’s has something to do with that!

Anyway, I digress. The next piece is by Roland Penrose, whose house I went to see in October last year. I adored that house. I wanted to go exploring in all the nooks and crannies. It was so interesting. So many quirky things, and to my delight Roland had painted on some of the walls. The house was light and airy, the sort of place I could easily live in.

Picasso is another artist I admire, and another I came to gradually. Sometimes attending an exhibition you are not sure about turns out to be enlightening, and that was what happened when I went along to a Picasso exhibition.

Diorama art is another fascination for me. Putting 3D scenes into boxes. What is there not to like? I can remember making little underwater scenes using an old shoe box back when I was younger. So, I photographed this just because it is a diorama. See here for more about that.

This will explain the above picture

This piece is by Ted Jonus and on every page is a drawing by a different artist. It is called Long Distance.

There were many paintings about people fleeing and the one below shows women fleeing.

I loved the art of Remedio Vara. There were three here together, I suppose you call them a triptych.

I’ll end with this one. It’s a bit scary. Entitled Central Park, NY, the little pictures around the edges are things that could be happening in various corners of the park!

Surrealism has the power to shock, to say WTF! and to surprise. It makes you think in a different way. It might be like Marmite – you either love it or hate it. That’s okay. That’s art for you. The images I have chosen are my choices, the art that said something to me. For everyone, that will be different. And that’s okay too!

The exhibition is until 29th August.

Tag: Surrealism

Kensington: An exhibition and walk

Surrealism Beyond Borders – Tate Modern