Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes @ The Hepworth Wakefield + Book

Forbidden Territories: 

100 Years of Surreal Landscapes

The Hepworth Wakefield

23 November 2024 – 27 April 2025

The Hepworth Wakefield presents Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes. This major exhibition marks 100 years since Surrealism began with the publication of André Breton’s ‘Manifesto of Surrealism’ in 1924. Taking its title from André Breton’s description of the Surrealist project as “the perpetual excursion into the midst of forbidden territories”, thisis the first UK survey to explore the role of  landscape in one of the most influential artistic, intellectual and literary movements of the twentieth century.

The exhibition brings together over 100 surrealist works, featuring a wide array of British and international artists working across mediums, from Breton’s circle in the 1920s, through to Surrealism’s ongoing resonances in contemporary art. Artists on display include Salvador Dalí, Eileen Agar, Lee Miller and Max Ernst, alongside later Surrealists such as Leonora Carrington, Edith Rimmington, Marion Adnams, Conroy Maddox, Desmond Morris, and contemporary artists working within the legacy of Surrealism such as Shuvinai Ashoona, Stefanie Heinze, Helen Marten, Nicolas Party, and Wael Shawky. Presented in transhistorical groupings, Forbidden Territories explores how Surreal ideas can turn landscape into a metaphor for the unconscious, fuse the bodily with the botanical, and provide means to express political anxieties, gender constraints and freedoms.

Central elements of André Breton’s manifesto, including automatism and psychoanalysis of childhood memories, became a route into re-visioning landscape painting for many Surrealists. Well-known paintings by Max Ernst and Yves Tanguy, which draw on the artists’ formative memories of the forests of Bavaria and seashores of Brittany respectively, will be displayed, alongside the first UK site-specific mural by Swiss artist Nicolas Party. Party is known internationally for hismonumental, immersive murals made with soft pastel, a medium  which holds vivid colours to create fantastical environments. Party will select historic Surreal landscapes to install on the mural, offering a contemporary twist on the Surrealist strategy of collage and juxtaposition.

As well as works by central figures from the movement, such as René Magritte and Francis Picabia, Forbidden Territories foregrounds previously neglected artists and narratives. These include the relationship between Surrealism and ecology, drawing prescient connections topresent day environmental concerns. Visual conversations will be drawn between the humananimal-botanical hybrids of Desmond Morris and Leonora Carrington from the 1950s, to those of Shuvinai Ashoona and Stefanie Heinze working today. Forbidden Territories also includes the first presentation of a new gift of Jean Arp’s plaster sculptures, at The Hepworth Wakefield, generously donated to Wakefield’s art collection by the Jean Arp Foundation. The plasters span several decades of the artist’s career and exemplify the surrealist biomorphism at the heart of his practice.

Surrealism responded to times of political upheaval. A series of works, made around the period of WWI, by Salvador Dalí, Gordon Onslow Ford and Mervyn Evans convey political tensions through uncanny landscapes. This section of the exhibition will also feature several sculptures and paintings by Egyptian contemporary artist Wael Shawky. These are presented alongside Lee Miller’s photographs of Egypt taken during WWI, creating a dialogue between these diverse surreal depictions of the landscapes of North Africa with undertones of political and societal tensions.

Forbidden Territories features a solo presentation of works by Mary Wykeham, a now underrecognized Surrealist artist who decided to become a nun in 1950, at the height of her career. The display includes her paintings, drawings, etchings on paper and copper printing plates, and is the largest public showing of Wykeham’s work since her solo show of 1949 at Galerie des Deux Îles, Paris. It marks the donation of a large group of works by Wykeham to The Hepworth Wakefield by her family, a body of work preserved by the convent where she spent her final years.

A final section of the exhibition brings together new work by contemporary artists María Berrío and Ro Robertson alongside Surrealists Ithell Colquhoun, Eileen Agar and Dora Maar, to explore ideas of gender identity and autofiction within bodies of water. 

Eleanor Clayton, Head of Collection and Exhibitions, said: ‘This unique survey will take visitors on a fantastical journey through an array of surrealist landscapes, some well-known and some rarely seen. Bringing exceptional modern art in dialogue with the best of contemporary practice is at the heart of our programme at The Hepworth Wakefield. We are delighted to be showing long-established masterpieces in Wakefield for the first time, alongside newly commissioned artwork, showing that the influence of Surrealism – one of the most dynamic and wide-reaching art movements of the twentieth century – is still alive to this day.’

Forbidden Territories: 

100 Years of Surreal Landscapes

Published by Thames and Hudson

A book of the same title is published by Thames and Hudson and edited by The Hepworth Wakefield’s Head of Collection and Exhibitions, Eleanor Clayton to accompany the exhibition. The book includes essays by Clayton, Patricia Allmer, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the University of Edinburgh; Anna Reid, Senior Lecturer History of Art at the University of Leeds; and Tor Scott, Curatorial Assistant, National Galleries of Scotland. It is interspersed with texts by artists including André Breton, María Berrío, Helen Marten, Ro Robertson and Mary Wykeham offering contemporary and historical perspectives on Surrealism.

Forbidden Territories at The Hepworth Wakefield is presenting concurrently with The Traumatic Surreal at Henry Moore Institute in Leeds. The Traumatic Surreal brings together work made after 1960 through to the present day to explore the radical appropriation and development of surrealist sculptural traditions by women artists in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg.

THE HEPWORTH WAKEFIELD

Gallery Walk, Wakefield, West Yorkshire WF1 5AW

hepworthwakefield.org

Penny Slinger "Exorcism: Inside Out" Exhibition @ Richard Saltoun Gallery, London + Book "An Exorcism: A Photo Romance"

Penny Slinger

Exorcism: Inside Out

Richard Saltoun Gallery, London

Through 7 September 2024

“We have many works that follow The Hero's Journey, but how many that track that of the Heroine? This journey of the embodied soul is not sexist; we all, male and female alike, need to discover who we are. It is like a detective story, in which we, both protagonists and victims, must follow the clues and unravel the plot. This psychological processing is something that I have not seen tackled in any other artwork like I have in ‘An Exorcism’. 

This is not a work that exists within a time capsule - it’s a subject that is timeless and universal. It is a blueprint for transformation and sets signposts in the sand for others who wish to know themselves.”

- Penny Slinger, 2024

Richard Saltoun Gallery presents Exorcism: Inside Out, a solo exhibition by pioneering LA-based, London-born Feminist Surrealist, PENNY SLINGER (b. 1947). Spanning original photo-collage, print and video work, the exhibition coincides with the publication of Penny Slinger's iconic book, An Exorcism: A Photo Romance (Fulgur Press, 21 June 2024). After the original An Exorcism was published in 1977, the artist created this extended version, which was nonetheless withheld from being published in the UK after her other collage book, Mountain Ecstasy (Dragon’s Dream, March 1978, Holland), was seized and burned by British customs for being deemed pornographic.

After nearly 50 years, Penny Slinger’s groundbreaking project can finally be revealed to audiences in the UK and beyond. In celebration of this extraordinary moment, Exorcism: Inside Out is one of the most ambitious exhibitions ever realised at Richard Saltoun Gallery. Inspired by the artist’s project for Dior’s haute couture fashion show in Paris in 2019, it is designed as an all-immersive audio-visual environment, with the entire gallery wrapped in images from the original An Exorcism series and presenting a spectacular evolution of the artist’s vision.

Penny Slinger began her career as one of the few celebrated women artists in the late 1960s' "Swinging London." Graduating from Chelsea College of Art in 1969, she focused her thesis on Max Ernst and found her primary artistic influence in Surrealism. Best known for her photo-collages, Penny Slinger’s work foregrounds the female body and sexuality in a radical and unapologetic manner, aiming, in her own words, "to bring the inside out and the outside in" and to create "a new language for the feminine psyche to express itself." 

An Exorcism is often hailed as her magnum opus. It’s composed of a collection of erotic collages set against the backdrop of the empty mansion known to her then-partner, Peter Whitehead. Described by Penny Slinger as a "surreal romance in photo collage," this work represents the "deepest excavations" she has done as an artist, started in 1969 and completed over approximately 7 years. The narrative unfolds through biographical chapters, tracing a young woman's journey towards self-actualization; from oppressive spaces dominated by phallocentric symbolism, evident in works such as He Crows, He Crows, He Crows, with the oversized head of a cock poking out from the corner, and Tribunal, in which a naked female figure stands exposed, surrounded by an all-dressed, all-male jury, to a reality where the protagonist finally comes into her feminine power, evoked in works like A Rose By Any Other Name, with a bright red, gigantic rose spreading its petals between a woman’s naked thighs, and Through the Glass, a tender communion of entangled women. 

Through a blend of personal embodiment and imaginative transgression, Penny Slinger integrates her own body into archetypal landscapes, engaging in a cultural exorcism that explores themes of fetishism and sexploitation from a feminist perspective. This autofictional journey is staged within the Gothic ambiance of Lilford Hall, merging the evocative allure of British neo-Romantic painting with the ominousness of horror cinema. 

From the original An Exorcism, Slinger created an extended version of the book, complete with her writings and a film script, which remain unpublished. The exhibition at Richard Saltoun Gallery presents a selection of Penny Slinger’s original collages from An Exorcism alongside her recent animated film An Exorcism - The Works (2019), which is shown for the very first time in the UK, and reflects Slinger’s original, filmic approach to the project. The entire gallery is transformed into an immersive environment, covered with images that mirror the surreal, decaying grandeur of the mansion, completely enveloping viewers within Penny Slinger's multifaceted exploration of desire, identity, and the subconscious.

Premiering in the UK, Exorcism: Inside Out invites visitors to "walk into the Mansion of Dreams and feel themselves part of it, from the inside out".

PENNY SLINGER

An Exorcism: A Photo Romance

Published by Fulgur Press, 2024

Hardback, Premium Italian 135gsm paper

192 pages, 188 colour printed images, with notes

12 x 9 inches / 30cm x 23cm 

© Penny Slinger / Fulgur Press

PENNY SLINGER

An Exorcism: A Photo Romance

Published by Fulgur Press, 2024

Deluxe, 49 copies only, signed by the artist - £460.00

© Penny Slinger / Fulgur Press

PENNY SLINGER

The provocative practice of London-born, LA-based artist Penny SLINGER (b. 1947) spans photography, collage, film and sculpture. Active from the late 1960s, Penny Slinger emerged into a maelstrom of political protest, social change and sexual freedom. She graduated from the Chelsea School of Art in 1969 having developed a visual language she described as 'feminist surrealism', influenced by her study of European Surrealism, her friendship with Roland Penrose and association with Max Ernst. Penny Slinger quickly began exploring and investigating the notion of the feminine subconscious and psyche, using her own body to examine the relationship between sexuality, mysticism and femininity.

Penny Slinger’s work was recently included in Tate Britain’s Women in Revolt! Art and Activism in the UK 1970–1990 exhibition, currently touring at the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh (2024/25), and The Horror Show! at Somerset House, London (2022), a landmark survey of provocative visionary British artists from the past 50 years. She featured in significant historical exhibitions such as The Dark Monarch: Magic and Modernity in British Art at Tate St. Ives (2009) and Angels of Anarchy: Women Artists and Surrealism at Manchester Art Gallery (2009), alongside Frida Kahlo and Meret Oppenheim.

RICHARD SALTOUN GALLERY | LONDON

41 Dover Street, London W1S 4NS 

www.richardsaltoun.com

Ralph Iwamoto, Surrealist Works @ Hollis Taggart Gallery, NYC - Wild Growth: Ralph Iwamoto, Surrealist Works from 1955

Wild Growth 

Ralph Iwamoto, Surrealist Works from 1955

Hollis Taggart Gallery, New York

March 23 – April 15, 2023

Hollis Taggart announces the representation of the estate of Japanese-American artist Ralph Iwamoto, known mostly for his abstract and minimalist paintings. To celebrate the representation of the estate, the gallery will present a focused exhibition of paintings from the very beginning of Iwamoto’s career: 1955, when he first exhibited his work in New York City.  These surrealist paintings explore the flora and fauna of his native Hawaii, as well as other organic forms, through a vibrant palette and techniques found in the art of Japan, the home country of both of Iwamoto’s parents. Wild Growth: Ralph Iwamoto, Surrealist Works from 1955 is the first in a series of exhibitions at Hollis Taggart that will explore various facets of the artist’s career.

Ralph Iwamoto (1927-2013) was born in Honolulu, Hawaii to Japanese Buddhist parents. Iwamoto witnessed the bombing of Pearl Harbor as a teenager in 1941, and, like many others of his generation who grew up in Hawaii, served in the Second World War. In 1948, he moved to New York City, where he fully immersed himself in the art world, enrolling in the Arts Students League with the support of the G.I. Bill and eventually forming close relationships with artists who would go on the form the Minimalist movement, including Sol LeWitt, Robert Ryman, and Dan Flavin. Despite being exhibited in the Whitney in 1958 as well as in several other group shows at museums and galleries across the United States, Iwamoto’s career and work has not been studied or exhibited nearly as extensively as that of his peers.

 “Since its founding, Hollis Taggart has been committed to advancing knowledge about under-recognized American artists and to working to restate their importance in the canon,” said Hollis Taggart. “We are thrilled that Ralph Iwamoto’s estate chose to work with us to promote scholarship about this multifaceted artist who was deeply embedded in the NYC arts scene but has been largely written out of narratives about it. We’re excited to begin the journey of reintroducing Iwamoto’s art to audiences through a focused look at one seminal year in his career: 1955.”

Though his Hawaiian-Japanese background remained very important to Iwamoto throughout his life, the experiences he had in New York City, as well as the community he formed here, were seminal to his development as an artist. Among other notable experiences, Iwamoto worked as a security guard at the Museum of Modern Art from 1957 to 1960. This job allowed him to spend significant time with the work of artists he deeply admired, including the surrealist imagery of Wifredo Lam, Rufino Tamayo, and Pablo Picasso. While Iwamoto worked at the MoMA following his creation of the paintings on view in Wild Growth, it is clear these artists influenced him throughout the 1950s. During this time, Iwamoto also worked at a store specializing in native Hawaiian goods and flowers called “Orchids of Hawaii.” This medley of experiences is clearly reflected in the surrealist forms of the flora and fauna found in his 1955 paintings, which are populated by “an invented taxonomy of kingdom hybrids,” as described by curator Jeffrey Wechsler in the catalogue essay.

While Wild Growth focuses on paintings from 1955, future exhibitions at Hollis Taggart will explore other important periods of Iwamoto’s career, including his experimentation with rigorous geometricism in the 1960s as well as his intense focus on the octagon in his minimalist compositions of the 1970s.

HOLLIS TAGGART

521 West 26th Street, New York NY 10001

www.hollistaggart.com

__________

Leonora Carrington at Tate Liverpool

Leonora Carrington 

Tate Liverpool 

6 March – 31 May 2015 

Tate Liverpool presents the first UK solo exhibition of work by LEONORA CARRINGTON (1917-2011) for over 20 years. Leonora Carrington explores the fantastical world of the painter and internationally celebrated member of the surrealist movement. 

A prolific painter, the exhibition looks at how the artist established her distinctive take on surrealism; characterised by eccentric beings which shift between plant, animal, human and object; between reality and otherworldliness. Taking key paintings as its starting point Leonora Carrington examines Leonora Carrington’s diverse practice and uses the artist’s own words, brought together by Mexican author Chloe Aridjis, to narrate the display.

In the mid–1930s Leonora Carrington turned her back on her upper-class upbringing in northern England, embarking upon a complicated relationship with German artist Max Ernst in France before spending a short time in Spain during the Second World War. Her creative practice at this point encompassed writing short stories, drawing and painting.

It was after arriving in Mexico in 1942 that Leonora Carrington’s practice expanded further as she populated plays, sculptures and textiles with her extraordinary worlds. In 1947 her work was included in an international exhibition of surrealism in New York, where she was the only female British artist featured, establishing her pivotal role within the surrealist movement. In the 1950s and 60s Leonora Carrington broadened her practice and embraced set and costume design for productions including her own, Penelope 1957, and films, for which she designed sets and costumes, as well as performing as an actress.

A major highlight in the exhibition is The Magical World of the Mayas 1964, a 4.5 metre long mural painted by Leonora Carrington for the opening of the new Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City in 1964. On display for the first time outside Mexico it serves as a monument to Leonora Carrington’s relationship with Mexico, the country she adopted as her home. 

Refusing to be constrained or restricted by expectations or conventional limitations, Leonora Carrington’s expanded practice has made her an inspiration to many contemporary artists working across a range of mediums. Her patron Edward James commented in 1975 that ‘she has never relinquished her love of experimentation, the result being that she has been able to diversify and explore a hundred or more techniques for the expression of her creative powers’.  

Leonora Carrington is curated by Francesco Manacorda, Artistic Director and author Chloe Aridjis with Lauren Barnes, Assistant Curator.

With support from the Government of Mexico as part of the Year of Mexico in the UK 2015 and sponsored by Edge Hill University, the UK University of the Year. 

TATE LIVERPOOL

www.tate.org.uk