Well met in Mexico

The Surreal House
Barbican Art Gallery, until 12 September

Surreal Friends: Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo and Kati Horna
Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, until 12 September

It may not come as a surprise to readers to learn that ‘the individual dwelling [is] a place of mystery and wonder’, yet this is the premise of the Barbican’s latest attempt to pull in the punters. A portmanteau surrealism show that tries to blend art, film and architecture, its reach exceeds its grasp, though the designers must have had great fun carving up the space into dark cabins and voids. Some of the best exhibits — apart from fine things by de Chirico, Magritte and Giacometti — are the films. The documentary made in the apartment of André Breton, Pope of Surrealism, is fascinating, and Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête is a treat, even if Tarkovsky and Godard suffer the torments of the looped; much better than Rebecca Horn’s tired old exploding piano sicking up its guts with the regularity of a cuckoo-clock. Ed Kienholz’s mordant tableau is worth seeing, though when I went the budgie was absent on R&R. You could easily wile away an afternoon here, even if the weighty hardback (£40) accompanying the show is more satisfying than the exhibition.

I much preferred Surreal Friends at Pallant House, Chichester’s flagship of modern art that is always such a pleasure to visit. Nearly all of the temporary exhibition space has been taken over for this triple bill, which focuses on two painters and a photographer who have surrealism and Mexico in common. Apparently visitors tend to polarise between strong partisanship for Leonora Carrington or Remedios Varo (unless they are Surrealist aficionados and find both intriguing), while Kati Horna is virtually unknown in this country and thus a discovery for almost everyone.