Things are getting surreal at Te Papa

We might be stuck in New Zealand for a while, but that does­n’t mean the world can’t come to us (espe­cial­ly if they’re rich, appar­ent­ly). That’s the cool thing about the new exhi­bi­tion Sur­re­al­ist Art: Mas­ter­pieces from Muse­um Boi­j­mans Van Beunin­gen
He Toi Pohe­wa: He Toi Marupō o Muhia­ma o Boi­j­mans Van Beunin­gen. You’ll get a slice of Europe last cen­tu­ry and get to get out of the wind of Welling­ton all at the same time.

The exhi­bi­tion steps you through Dada first, which was a reac­tion to the first World War. When things are pret­ty shit, it’s nat­ur­al to want to escape into the dreamy and fan­tas­ti­cal, right? I think we all expe­ri­enced that in 2020. Many of the Dada cut & paste abstract jour­nals on dis­play seemed famil­iar to me — expect I knew them in the ’90s as zines. It was inter­est­ing to see the pieces with a more con­tem­po­rary eye — does a fig­ure with soft “fem­i­nised” hips and a penis still seem as shock­ing now that the West­ern world is final­ly wak­ing up to the fact that gen­der is not bina­ry?

But I felt the cura­tion could have guid­ed us a lit­tle more for the cur­rent con­text. If the Mae West sofa was orig­i­nal­ly con­sid­ered shock­ing for the art of sit­ting on lips, what does it mean when it’s on dis­play in a coun­try where the head is con­sid­ered to be tapu and every­one knows you don’t sit on tables or kitchen bench­es?

Or in the case of the Margritte Mir­ror dig­i­tal repli­ca­tion, where you see the back of your head when look­ing straight in to a mir­ror, how can that be rein­ter­pret­ed for the age of self­ies?

And then what does it mean when I take pho­tos of it tak­ing images of me and share them here?

That’s not the only inter­ac­tive part of the exhi­bi­tion. The sur­re­al­ists were obsessed with dreams, so you’re invit­ed to write down one of your own and file it away in the card cat­a­logue. I was there the day the exhi­bi­tion opened so the cat­a­logue was emp­ty, but I won­der if read­ing about oth­er peo­ple’s dreams would be as drea­ry as lis­ten­ing to them can be.

There’s a screened-off room full of the more risqué pieces — a Venus in bondage, a lit­tle nudi­ty, a film that was shock­ing in the 1930s. Leg­ends of Tomor­row fans will even dis­cov­er Gary’s haunt­ed nip­ple — per­haps those wacky time trav­ellers are what inspired Ducham­p’s Please Touch. 

As the most famous Sur­re­al­ist artist, Sal­vador Dali is at the cen­tre of the exhi­bi­tion, both metaphor­i­cal­ly but also phys­i­cal­ly, with his four of his dreamy land­scapes in their own cir­cu­lar enclosure.This is where I real­ly must rec­om­mend that you try to see the exhi­bi­tion at a qui­et time. Take an extend­ed lunch break if you can, or go first thing in the morn­ing on a week­end before oth­ers get up. You’ll want time to sink into his hyper-real­is­tic-but-also-not works, and you’ll want the qui­et.

The exhi­bi­tion took me around an hour to get through, by myself and it was­n’t too emp­ty, but I am a fast read­er. But if you can make it to the muse­um on a qui­et week­day not in the school hol­i­days, def­i­nite­ly make sure you take your­self through the rest of the art too, and go and bathe in the light of Tiffany Singh’s Indra’s bow & Total inter­nal reflec­tion. That’s got to be good for your vit­a­min D lev­els!

Sure­al­list Art is on until Octo­ber 31. Adult tick­ets are $23.50, and con­ces­sions are avail­able. Te Papa and the exhi­bi­tion are wheel­chair acces­si­ble and their web­site lists a cou­ple of qui­eter ses­sions for vis­i­tors with autism or sen­so­ry sen­si­tiv­i­ties, or liv­ing with dis­abil­i­ty.