Installation view. Photograph by Andy Stagg.
Offering the chance to view Dalí against Björk, Tim Walker and Dior, the Design Museum presents a startlingly fascinating exhibition, Objects of Desire: Surrealism and Design 1924–Today. Exploring the role of Surrealism and its impact on design, this landmark exhibition is the first time both entities are explored on such a scale in the UK. Promising a show like no other, expect artworks and objects from Surrealist icons such as ManRay, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp and Leonora Carrington.
Salvador Dalí, Lobster Telephone, 1938. Photo WestDean College of Arts and Conservation.© SalvadorDalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, DACS 2022
Hosted at the Design Museum’s Kensington space, the exhibition discovers how the groundbreaking art movement not only revolutionised the fine art world, but also its influence on design. From fashion to furniture and interiors, to decorative arts, photography and film, the exhibition documents works from over 100 years and presents close to 350 objects on display. Viewers can take delight in some of the world’s most-iconic Surrealist paintings and sculptures, including Dalí’s Lobster Telephone and Man Ray’s The Gift (Le Cadeau) exhibited against dozens of contemporary pieces of art and design. With many pieces on loan from the Vitra Design Museum in Germany, and also private collections and institutions such as the Tate and the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, this spectacular exhibition is undoubtedly a once-in-a-lifetime art and design moment.
Installation view. Photograph by Andy Stagg.
Installation view. Photograph by Andy Stagg.
Installation view. Photograph by Andy Stagg.
The exhibition is split into four key sections to focus on the art movement’s influence on everyday objects, interior design, fashion, the body and the mind. The show begins proceedings by an examination of Surrealism’s birth in the 1920s to consider the pivotal role design played in its development. In these early years, key protagonists such as Dalí, Meret Oppenheim, Magritte and Man Ray pondered the aura and mysterious new form of ordinary, everyday items and interiors to experiment with sculpture to create absurd objects.
Sarah Lucas, Cigarette Tits [Idealized Smokers ChestII], 1999. Chair, balls, cigarettes, bra, 78.74 x 49.53 x52.71 cm (31 x 19½x 20¾in) © Sarah Lucas.Courtesy of Sadie Coles HQ, London.
Porca Miseria!, 2019 edition of 1994 design, IngoMaurer, Steel; porcelain. Vitra Design Museum
From the 1940S, humour started to take centre stage and inspiration moved in an opposite direction whereby designers sought Surrealism to create surprising, even humorous objects. Take the modest bicycle, eventuating as a common motif over the years that would be transformed time over, notably so by Gae Aulenti to create Tour (1993) – a table incorporating a glass top, supported by four bicycle wheels set in chrome forks, and presented in this very exhibition. Jasper Morrison further presents his own ‘readymade’ Handlebar Table (1982) while Sella (1957) by brothers Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, is a composition of a bicycle saddle mounted and fixed into a hemispherical base, blurring the boundary between furniture and art.
Installation view. Photograph by Andy Stagg.
Examining the movement’s embrace of the human form as the ultimate blank art canvas, the section on Surrealism and the body is the first to so intensively consider the role of the body, sexuality and desire. Photography forms the major medium here, including Marcel Duchamp dressed as his female alter ego, works by Rrose Selavy and Claude Cahun’s Self-Portrait (in the Mirror). Contemporary works are placed with historical icons, including Sarah Lucas’ Cigarette Tits and Najla el Zein’s Hay’s ‘Sensorial Brushes’ series.
Installation view. Photograph by Andy Stagg.
With Surrealism perhaps often associated foremost to continental Europe, this exhibition seeks to shine a light specifically on its significance in the UK. The collaboration between Dalí and British poet and art patron, Edward James, is heavily documented in this exhibition to cover the creation of world-famous Surrealist interior design pieces, such as the Mae West Lips sofas, described as the single most important piece of Surrealist furniture in the UK. On loan from Brighton Museum, the piece will be seen alongside a pair of Champagne Lamps and one of the original four ever-iconic Lobster Telephone works by Dalí, also commissioned by Edward James for his London residence.
Schiaparelli, Look 6 Haute Couture, Spring/Summer2021. Courtesy of Schiaparelli
Forming a further strand of the exhibition, Surrealism’s influence on fashion is presented in spectacular form. Beginning in the 1930s at a time when many Surrealist artists worked as fashion photographers, such as Lee Miller and Man Ray, or those such as Dalí and de Chirico, creating covers for fashion magazines such as Vogue. Photographs and vintage copies of these magazines are exhibited to highlight these connections, seen together with Surrealism-inspired photography for modern-day magazines such as Tim Walker’s 2013 photo shoot with actress Tilda Swinton for W Magazine.
Installation view. Photograph by Andy Stagg.
Closing the exhibition with a contemplation of new technology, the exhibition explores how Surrealist artists embrace advancements to further influence the creative process, tools and how we go about our lives in ways far beyond what was previously thought possible. For example, sketches on show by contemporary designers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, who use an intuitive, automatic drawing process to discover new imagery and forms. Examples of Sketch furniture, traced by the designer’s hand and body in mid-air using motion capture further responds to the early Surrealists and their hope to invite chance into the creative process, allow the subconscious to find expression, and free themselves from conventional art and design practice.
Installation view. Photograph by Andy Stagg.
Kathryn Johnson, curator of the exhibition comments,“If you think Surrealism fizzled out in the 1960s, think again. This exhibition shows that it is still alive and well and that it never really went away. The early Surrealists were survivors of the First World War and the 1918 influenza pandemic, and their art was in part a reaction to those horrors. Today, in the context of dizzying technological change, war and another global pandemic, Surrealism’s spirit feels more alive than ever in contemporary design.”
Objects of Desire: Surrealism and Design 1924 – Today at the Design Museum V&A, runs until 19 February 2023.
The Design Museum, 224-238 Kensington High Street, W8
designmuseum.org
