Surrealism and Contemporary Art: Subversive Spaces
13 June - 6 September
This exhibition brings together the pioneers of Surrealism and a generation of younger artists who continue to find inspiration in the intellectual and aesthetic origins of the movement.
This exhibition looks at two areas: Wandering the City and Psychic Interiors. The first of these examines the artist walking through the city as a means to discover hidden social spaces as well as unconscious fears and desires. From Brassaï's atmospheric night-time photographs of an unfamiliar Paris to George Shaw's melancholy depictions of playgrounds and the Coventry estate where he grew up, attention is drawn to the derelict, disused spaces of urban environments. Within this section, ideas of social and political exclusion, regeneration, borders, margins and journeys are explored.
Psychic Interiors investigates houses, bedrooms, hotels, tunnels and labyrinths where the space portrayed becomes a place of unease, constraint and mystery. One focus is the impact of confining women within the home, explored through the work of Lucy Gunning and Dorothea Tanning.
A Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester Touring Exhibition.
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View the gallery guide
View images of works from the exhibition
Related events
Exhibition tours (Included in admission price)
Fri 3, 17 & 31 July
Fri 14 & 28 August, 12noon
Lecture: Surrealist Architecture Lecture: Directing Dreams
Thurs 16 July, 1pm Sat 29 August, 1pm
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Related shop items
The exhibition catalogue
Subversive Spaces
Surrealism + Contempoary art
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Image credit: Lucy Gunning, Climbing Round My Room, 1993. Video production still. Courtesy of the artist and Matt's Gallery