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Canter through Dada

Andrew Lambirth

Tuesday, 18th March 2008

Duchamp, Man Ray, Picarbia
Tate Modern, until 26 May

Juan Muñoz
Tate Modern, until 27 April

The exhibition proceeds through a room of objects, which are the most famous emanations of this artistic trio. The urinal is here, as it has to be, resting on its back. There are the utilitarian objects, like the coatrack and bottle rack, and the shovel inspiringly named ‘In Advance of the Broken Arm’. Then there are the more ambiguous pieces, like Duchamp’s birdcage filled with marble sugar-cubes, or Man Ray’s ‘Enigma of Isidore Ducasse’ (a wrapped anvil) and his spiked iron. Picabia’s ‘Woman with Matches’ is a welcome ‘painting’, though drawn on with matches, coins and hairgrips. A room of Op Art vibrating discs and patterns leads into a room of Man Ray’s photos. ‘I have finally freed myself from the sticky medium of paint,’ he wrote, rather jumping the gun as he soon returned to it. Picabia loses out around here in the centre of the show, so a room is given over to his paintings, in which the imagery flows and interpenetrates. ‘Venus’ of c.1942 is good, and the bizarre trio of ‘Minos’, ‘Rubi’ and ‘Catax’, but by this time the viewer’s energy is flagging and few visitors were pausing long here. They preferred the Intermission room, with photos and documentation and films (much easier to look at).

Room 12 was also something of a draw, being dedicated to eroticism. Man Ray’s photos are undeniably sexy and effective, but Picabia’s ultra-kitsch painted nudes are simply horrible. There’s an unsuccessful projected reconstruction of Duchamp’s final work (made when he pretended he’d given up art), and then Room 13 is Endgame. Here are a whole series of small Picabia paintings, interesting enough to make me wish the entire show had been a proper study of this important and underrated artist. Also Man Ray’s ‘Monument to the Unknown Painter’, a croupier’s rake stood upright. This show is much funnier than the Hayward’s Laughing in a Foreign Language, but in the end it’s almost as unsatisfying.

I went to the Juan Muñoz exhibition with few expectations apart from a vague dread of seeing too many plastic-looking grey figures chatting merrily to each other. I couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised. Muñoz (1953–2001) was a serious sculptor who has become known best for his grey men, updated and glorified garden gnomes, much favoured by curators who love installation. In fact, as can be seen from this thorough retrospective, he was much more than that. He had, for instance, a thing about balconies, witness the exhibition foyer and various exhibits within the display. Empty balconies that you have to look up to. (There are some scrappy but emotive drawings of balconies on large sheets of brown paper.) Then there are the forged iron staircases, the trompe-l’oeil lino, the barley-twist terracotta columns. Muñoz is good at architectural details but also human backs, a wax drum stabbed by scissors, cabinets of casts (from body parts to flick-knives), chalky interiors drawn on blackened gaberdine-raincoat fabric — all this before the little grey figures begin to take over.

Muñoz called himself a storyteller and his work certainly strayed away from its Minimalist roots (in Donald Judd and Carl Andre) towards a much more baroque narrative art. A pity really, as he went too far, I think. Although the best of the work has a touch of mystery and invention that can only be called Goya-esque, the garden-gnome syndrome is all too present. The show tours to the Guggenheim, Bilbao (6 June to 28 September), Museu Serralves, Porto (31 October 2008 to 18 January 2009) and Fundación la Caixa, Madrid (6 February to 7 June 2009). A brave tribute.