The Dudes! Parisian Surrealists Tristan Tzara, Paul Eluard,  Andre Breton, Hans Arp, Salvador Dali, Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, Rene Crevel, and Man Ray, Paris, 1933
  • Photo: Anna Riwkin, Courtesy Moderna Museet
  • The Dudes! Parisian Surrealists Tristan Tzara, Paul Eluard, Andre Breton, Hans Arp, Salvador Dali, Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, Rene Crevel, and Man Ray, Paris, 1933
Last week Seattle Art Museum celebrated upcoming exhibitions, headlined by Gauguin and Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise (opening February 2012).

Gauguin's the guy who traveled to exotic islands in order to up the ante on painting naked women as mysterious objects—now they were brown mysterious objects!—in a bonanza of sexism, racism, and colonialism. Awwwkward.

But SAM is anticipating this: "Past exhibitions have addressed Gauguin’s involvement with other cultures in a fairly superficial way," the curators write. Not this one, they emphasize. It will include 60 works by the famous painter but an equal number of Polynesian pieces, "bring[ing] Polynesian arts and culture into the center of Gauguin studies."

Whether the show delivers on its claim, the claim itself is interesting: Is it possible to "rehabilitate" artists and historical movements in blockbusters? And is SAM saying Gauguin has been sold short—or just that SAM will add a new layer?

Gilles Ehrmann, Andre Breton's apartment at 42, rue Fontaine, 1968, cibachrome
  • Collection Jean-Luc Mercie
  • Gilles Ehrmann, Andre Breton's apartment at 42, rue Fontaine, 1968, cibachrome
Right now at Vancouver Art Gallery in B.C., there's another post-colonial blockbuster up: The Colour of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art. I saw it last week, and the "rehabilitation effect" is apparent right in the first room.

Surrealism—like Gauguin—makes me groan. It's gender-stupid and wildly overexposed. (I will admit that it's also possibly the most influential movement in modern art history.) But again, curator Dawn Ades takes pains to anticipate negative associations and address some—not all—of them head-on. The gender-stupidity and vague vapor of homophobia are still here, big-time, but...

(Continued, with eye-candy, on the jump.)
UPDATE: How funny. It is apparently Gauguin's birthday.

...the first objects you see in the show are two First Nations pieces, one a small headdress collected by Surrealist founder Andre Breton—who took possession of the headdress during the Canadian potlatch ban, when objects were seized and natives were forcibly assimilated. Despite the cruelty of the object's journey, Breton kept the headdress, mute, on his desk, for his whole life. In 2003, Breton's daughter finally returned it to the Kwakwaka'wakw tribe, who've loaned it to be seen to reveal this ambivalent history at the museum.

In a sea of Breton-worship, this moment is mixed, capturing the heartlessness of distant admiration.

And in the very next room, the first photos you encounter document an exhibition co-organized by the French Communist Party and the Surrealists, protesting the official colonial expo put on by the government at the time.

These are small details—to note that surrealists had complex relations with their source materials (see also Kurt Seligmann's photograph of a fallen totem pole), and that surrealists were not a congealed mass but a group of individuals—but blockbusters often lack in such details, so it's especially nice.

Now about that gender-stupidity/homophobia. I'm posting several works here, including two by two very different female surrealists (Claude Cahun and Leonora Carrington), as well as Seligmann's image of a fallen totem pole preceding one of his later (related?) paintings. The show also includes the artists Joseph Cornell, Hans Bellmer, Brassai, Man Ray, Joan Miro, Louise Bourgeois, Alberto Giacometti, Yves Tanguy, Matta, and a whole series of filmmakers (including Luis Bunuel, F.W. Murnau, Buster Keaton, and animator Dave Fleischer).

LOVE. Claude Cahuns Self-Portrait (as weight-trainer) from 1927. Her shirt reads, I am in training. Dont kiss me.
  • Jersey Heritage Collection
  • LOVE. Claude Cahun's Self-Portrait (as weight-trainer) from 1927. Her shirt reads, "I am in training. Don't kiss me."

The Kwakwakawakw peace dance headdress Breton kept on his desk, circa 1922.
  • Photo: Trevor Mills, Vancouver Art Gallery
  • The Kwakwaka'wakw peace dance headdress Breton kept on his desk, circa 1922.

Max Ernst, Pieta or Revolution by Night, 1923, oil on canvas
  • Photo: Tate, London/Art Resource, NY
  • Max Ernst, Pieta or Revolution by Night, 1923, oil on canvas

Giorgio di Chirico, Childs Brain, 1914, oil on canvas
  • Estate of Giorgio de Chirico/SODRAC
  • Giorgio di Chirico, Child's Brain, 1914, oil on canvas

Leonora Carrington (who died just recently), The House Opposite, 1945, oil on canvas
  • Leonora Carrington/SODRAC (2011)
  • Leonora Carrington (who died just recently), The House Opposite, 1945, oil on canvas

Enrico Donati, Fist, 1946, bronze and glass
  • Photo: Nick Pishvanov
  • Enrico Donati, Fist, 1946, bronze and glass

Rene Magritte, The Six Elements, 1929, oil on canvas
  • Estate of Rene Magritte/SODRAC (2010)
  • Rene Magritte, The Six Elements, 1929, oil on canvas

Kurt Seligmann, Fallen Totem Pole, 1932, gelatin silver print
  • Photo: Musee du Quai Branly/SCALA/Art Resource, NY
  • Kurt Seligmann, Fallen Totem Pole, 1932, gelatin silver print

Kurt Seligmann, Melusine and The Great Transparents, 1943, oil and tempera on canvas
  • 2011 Orange County Citizens Foundation/SODRAC
  • Kurt Seligmann, Melusine and The Great Transparents, 1943, oil and tempera on canvas

Salvador Daliand Edward James, Lobster Telephone, 1938, painted plaster and telephone
  • © Salvador Dali, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dali/SODRAC (2011)
  • Salvador Dali and Edward James, Lobster Telephone, 1938, painted plaster and telephone