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.
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