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The Surreal House

Architecture of Desire

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Installation view of Surreal House

Viewers were invited to enter The Surreal House, a mysterious dwelling infused with subjectivity and desire.

This exhibition invited visitors to step inside a labyrinth of chambers, designed by acclaimed young architects Carmody Groarke. The Surreal House - its haunted rooms, delirious forms, blasted architecture and cinematic dreamscapes - featured a host of artists, architects and film makers including Salvador Dali, Marcel Duchamp, Alberto Giacometti, René Magritte, Man Ray, Joseph Cornell and Maya Deren through to more contemporary figures, among them; Rebecca Horn, Edward Kienholz and Rem Koolhaas. At times enchanting, playful and at others, deeply disquieting,

The Surreal House was a dwelling which was essentially everything that the rational, functional Modernist house is not.

Tagged with: Art Gallery Archive

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Reviews

‘An ambitious and rewarding, if necessarily sinister peek into some of the most bizarre dwellings imaginable- its scope grand enough to include art, architecture, film and photography‘
Time Out
‘Enter a house haunted by art‘
Dazed
‘A brilliantly designed show focusing on architecture and its relationship to Surrealism‘
The Times
‘The most surreal of houses turns out to be the Barbican itself. Labyrinthine and fantastical, this Surreal House is the antithesis of orderly modernism‘
London Art Pulse