“Arte Povera” at Bourse de Commerce and “Surrealism” at Centre Pompidou
On the basis of scale, Paris’s two biggest exhibitions are two surveys centered around historical avant-gardes. These exhibitions contain unusual curatorial styles. The former, centered around the Italian Arte Povera movement of the 1960s, features a dozen pieces installed at the center of Bourse de Commerce’s rotunda, forcing viewers to circumnavigate these works, all by different artists. The gesture is cacophonic in the best way, showcasing the diversity in these artists’ approaches while also proving that Arte Povera’s members all shared aesthetic affinities.
The remainder of the exhibition, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, is divided by artist. With each artist seen in isolation, you never really get a sense of how the whole movement coalesced, nor do we ever exactly get a fresh argument about Arte Povera more generally. Still, the show proves that Arte Povera artists worked in many different ways. The show cannot be accused of flattening the movement, as many dealers do when they bring related works to art fairs.
The Arte Povera show is light-filled and precise. The Pompidou’s Surrealism exhibition, on the other hand, plunges you into darkness, setting you up for the labyrinth of a show that follows. A treacly introductory wall text states: “As you prepare to enter, you must leave all clear ideas dictated by reason at the door. Between these walls, nature ‘devours progress’, night melds with day, dream blends with reality.” Alrighty, then.
This exploration of Surrealism is supersized, with around 500 works on hand. It’s in need of some editing. I could have done without an overly long section about how Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland inspired the Surrealists. After about five examples, you get the point. There are too many works by André Masson, a core Surrealist whose art is uneven in quality. And by the way, why are there so many Picassos? One would have sufficed.
A few recent high-profile shows, including the 2022 Venice Biennale, have significantly expanded the canon of Surrealism, underlining the fact that it wasn’t just limited to white male artists based in Paris. Some of those newly canonized Surrealists are here, but there still aren’t many artists of color to be found in this show.
Nevertheless, there are many great works here. Marcel Jean’s Armoire surrealiste (1947) has made the short but significant journey from Paris’s Musée des Arts Décoratifs. It’s a four-panel painting, with each part showing wooden doors of different sizes left slightly ajar, hinting at a lush hilly beachscape behind. This is an unsung masterpiece of the movement. Earlier in the show is his equally extraordinary Décalcomanie (1936), in which a face emerges from a semi-abstract swath of black paint.
René Magritte’s painting Les Valeurs personnelles (1952) shows large-than life objects—a pink match with a yellow tip, an emerald-colored wine glass, a pink bar of soap, a shaving brush, and a comb resting on a much smaller bed—in a room with wallpaper of a cloudy blue sky. Dorothea Tanning’s installation Chambre 202, Hôtel du Pavot (1970), in which stuffed bodily forms burst through the wallpaper of an apartment-like space, still packs a punch nearly 55 years later. I just wish some of the less well-known Surrealists—like Wilhelm Freddie, Oscar Dominguez, Toyen, Ithell Colquhoun, Jorge Camacho, Kay Sage, Jane Graverol—had greater representation here.
Allot more than two hours to get through this show. A tip: it might be worth turning the Pompidou’s logic on its head and starting with the end of the show, where many of the real gems are.
