Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes at The Hepworth Wakefield
Maja Lorkowska, Exhibitions Editor
Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes at The Hepworth Wakefield marks 100 years of the Surrealist movement since its origins in 1924 with the publication of the Surrealist Manifesto by the poet and critic André Breton. The exhibition features legendary artists’ work, from Leonora Carrington to Salvador Dalí and Max Ernst. It focuses specifically on landscape and how it was used by Surrealists as a metaphor for the unconscious, but also as a symbolic to be used as commentary on political anxieties and questions of gender.
Contemporary artists are also woven into the selection to bring the Surrealists ideas to the conversations we’re still having today, such as the section of the exhibition featuring contemporary artists María Berrío and Ro Robertson alongside Surrealists Ithell Colquhoun and Dora Maar, to explore ideas of identity and autofiction within bodies of water.
Forbidden Territories also features largest public showing of Mary Wykeham’s work since 1949, an under-recognised Surrealist finally gaining the recognition she deserves.
