What Does a Man Want? Reflections on “Surrealism Desire Unbound”

Abstract

This paper is a critical review of the exhibition “Surrealism: Desire Unbound” at the Tate and Metropolitan Museums of Art. The author argues that the majority of the art represents a variety of perverse solutions to male gender anxiety, solutions that most often take the form of viewing the female body as a fetish object or as an object for sadistic drives. She interprets such aggression toward females as being a consequence of the era in which these works were created: Europe between two world wars. Female self-representation is juxtaposed with male-generated art and demonstrates how women artists reclaimed their gaze and desire. * Exhibition at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.