by Jon Lackman | 19 June 2006 | Modern, Museums
Abattoirs, spittle, ancient medallions and big toes feature, as expected, in “Undercover Surrealism,” the Hayward Gallery’s tribute to Georges Bataille. Most reviewers note that the erstwhile publisher of Documents is now accorded the place of honor long reserved for Andre Breton. Read reviews by Bryan Appleyard, Laura Cumming (“fetishes, voodoo dolls, two-faced African gods, wax models of anencephalic babies, jars of glass votives that bob eerily up and down as the temperature changes”), Ned Denny (“An oddly angled close-up of a lobster’s claw seems at first glance to be a portrait of a monstrous, evil-eyed parrot”), Martin Gayford, Waldemar Januszczak (“the disruptive presence and, yes, the masturbatory violence”), Ben Lewis, and Jackie Wullschlager, and an excerpt from Dawn Ades and Fiona Bradley’s catalog essay (“photos of Chinese executions, including public beheadings and the notorious killing by a ‘thousand pieces’ witnessed and recorded by recent European travelers”).
