This exhibition gives a fascinating incite to a previously overlooked area of surrealism. A wonderfully bizarre area of art, surrealism challenges our conventions and questions the every day. Angels of Anarchy pushes this further by focusing on women artists. Male surrealists tended to continue to view women in a stereotypical way despite the forward thinking and questioning nature of the movement. The involvement of a small number of female artists in the movement from the 1930s onwards therefore saw work from women that were way ahead of their time and had a view of the world far beyond the boundaries of what was expected of them. A figure that stood out for me was Claude Cahun, whose self portrait presents identity as being something that is not fixed, beyond fact, it comments that our own identity can be crafted and manipulated, presented to others as we choose fit. As with much of the surrealist work, it questions reality and the way we view the world. In an ever increasing landscape of manipulated and carefully crafted images Cahun’s work is perhaps even more relevant to our world today than it was in the 1920s.
The work in this extraordinary exhibition turns accepted norms on their head and (if only momentarily), we are lifted out from the little bubbles of our individual everyday worlds to see the bigger picture. A well worth while and insightful visit!
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