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.