(Salvador Dali’s Sleep)

Spanning a century of painting, sculpture, photography, film and architecture, the Surreal House show at the Barbican is a lot more than a rehash of the classical surrealism of Dali, de Chirico, Magritte and co. The connection between surrealism and the architecture of the house is at the heart of the show, and it starts with a powerful proposition that takes us back to the greatest of all Modernist architects, le Corbusier. A wall-blurb suggests that while he ‘was designing purist homes for wealthy clients- sanitised, light-filled spaces- the surrealists were imagining a very different kind of dwelling: the house of desire, the house of play and the haunted house’. But the counterpoint of the surrealist irrational vs. the Modernist rational is not always so simple.

Sigmund Freud, who opened the lid on the subconscious, is represented here by his consulting room chair. It’s a strange contraption, with a wide oval headrest, a narrow curvy back and thin arms giving it an uncannily human form. Stranger still, there’s a tangible impression that it’s watching you from inside its glass case as you pass. The irrational is already in play. Freud’s psychoanalysis plumbed murky depths to chart suppressed desire, and classic surrealism is laced with men’s sexual fantasy. One of this show’s great achievements is to redress this imbalance with powerful pieces by women. Making a metaphor of male sexuality, Louise Bourgeois’ installation No Exit (1989) places two great balls either side of stairs, rising to the dead end of a screen. In Sarah Lucas’ Au Naturel (1994), a cucumber, two oranges, a bucket and a pair of melons are embedded in a mattress, spelling out sex with hilarious clarity.

Another of Surreal House’s great achievements is the trail of film, starting with Buster Keaton’s brilliant Steamboat Bill Jnr (1928). He reels and stumbles through collapsing, fleeing structures in a windstorm, and in an iconic cut (famously re-enacted by Steve McQueen in 1999) he is left dazed but unscathed when a façade falls on him, thanks to the the positioning of a window aperture. Surrealists loved Keaton, and after eighty years, this show acknowledges him as one. There are many gems on the film trail, and even a small cinema called Electric Palace. Again, one of the most effective works is by a woman- Maya Deren’s sunny daydream surrealism in Meshes of the Afternoon (1943). The children’s nightmares meticulously constructed in Jan Svankmajer’s claustrophobic films, by contrast, are deliciously dark and disturbing.


(Sarah Lucus’ Au Naturel)

The split-level show has been shoehorned into the Barbican Art Gallery with a layout designed by London architects Carmody Groarke, who have a reputation for their handling of small-scale projects. The dense, labyrinth- almost a maze- of spaces downstairs explores the house interior. Its spaces are themed. ‘Theatre of the Domestic’, for example, is dominated by Rebecca Horn’s Concert for Anarchy (1990), an upside-down piano hanging from the ceiling. Periodically, it opens and its keys extend outwards on their wooden links, Alien-like, to make sinister, descending twangs that resonate perfectly with the mood permeating the veritable treasure trove of works. These include intriguing black-and-white surrealist photography from Man Ray in the 20s to Francesca Woodman in the 1970s.
Only one work seems out of place- Noble & Webster’s stunning Metal Fucking Rats (2006), a heap of scrap that casts a shadow of rats at it, feels too post-industrial and jarring.

Climbing to the upper level, where the house is considered from outside, is almost like coming up for air. It is here that the architectural link is explored. Two residences by le Corbusier, both finished in 1931, appear in the show- a penthouse on the Champs d’Elysées, and the Villa Savoye outside Paris. The Baistégui Apartment’s roofgarden had hedges that rose up at the touch of a button (talk about the house as a ‘machine for living’!), and the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe became detached de Chirco-esque objects peeping over its screen-walls. Le Corbusier treated the space like a room where the sky was the ceiling- the most rational architects dabbling with surrealism. But perhaps there was always a touch of the surrealist to le Corbusier- the concrete protrusions on the roof of his iconic Unité d’Habitation, for example, are shaped like playful objects on a dream-like platform. The Villa Savoye was forerunner of that building, here documented in René Burri’s 1959 photographs as it fell into ruin. Surrealism emerges in its decay, something celebrated by Bernard Tschumi’s1977 Advertisement (Decoy) posters, which declare ‘the Villa Savoye was never so moving as when the plaster fell off its concrete blocks’ and ‘architecture is the ultimate erotic act’. House architecture continues with a film of contemporary starchitect Rem Koolhaas’ cool, colourful post-Corbusian Villa Dall’Ava, finished in 1991, and conceptual models by the likes of Coop Himmelb(l)au. But the most stunning house on show is seen in clips from Jean-Luc Goddard’s 1963 film Le Mepris. High over a sundrenched Capri bay, Brigitte Bardot tempts and teases around the Casa Malaparte, a great bunker where an entire side is a staircase. Its designer, the writer Cuzio Malaparte, was inspired by a de Chirico painting, The Evil Genius of a King (1915), one of several classical surrealist masterpieces that the Barbican has managed to borrow.

The image that best represents Surrealism in the public mind is probably Dali’s sublime Sleep (39). Seeing the original painting in this show, you may notice that there are houses in it, but they melt into a distant ice-cream-like mound on the Spanish horizon. Just as the house is where people live, the head is where the imagination lives, and Dali’s head is the ultimate Surreal House. This fabulous show reminds us what a strange, absorbing place it is to poke around in.


(Rebecca Horn’s Concert for Anarchy)