Subversive Spaces: Surrealism and Contemporary Art at Whitworth Art Gallery until 4th May

Dismembered legs, hysterical bodies and a major new installation by Gregor Schneider combine in this disturbing exhibition exploring the legacy of Surrealist artists.

A major new exhibition at the Whitworth Art Gallery sets out to explore the legacy of Surrealist artists such as Max Ernst, Renee Magritte and Salvador Dali through the work of contemporary artists.

The exhibition is divided into three main sections. In Psychic Interiors we explore the Surrealist concept of the home as a constraining space and its accompanying emotions of anxiety and hysteria. Works by Mona Hatoum, Tony Oursler and Sarah Lucas see too-small rooms full of furniture that threatens to crush and kill, while Markus Schinwald and Douglas Gordon’s writhing bodies explore the idea of hysteria.

In Wandering The Streets we explore the idea that by walking through the city we can uncover both hidden social spaces and our own unconscious fears and desires. Robert Gobers shows a dismembered leg protruding from the floor as if from a mortuary slab alongside Max Ernst’s nightmarish collages.

In the third section, viewers are taken one by one through the pitch-darkness of the South Gallery to discover Kinderzimmer Gregor Schneider’s eerily lit nurseries. Recovered from a village that was destroyed to make way for opencast mining, these ghostly rooms are the first UK installation from Schneider since his seminal Die Familie Schneider opened in London in 2004.

With contemporary artists such as Tony Oursler, Francis Alys, Sarah Lucas and Robert Gosler displayed alongside Surrealist masters such as Salvador Dali, Renee Magritte, Max Ernst and Brassai, this is a disorientating and rare exhibition that shows how strong the Surrealist influence is on artists working today.