Modern Couples. Art, Intimacy and the Avant-garde, Barbican Centre

A huge collection was gathered at the Barbican in October celebrating the relationships fostered amongst the creative scenes of the recent past. A list of some huge names such as Picasso, Dali and Kahlo and some lesser known names like Toyen and Jindrich Styrsky. The show felt as if it had been arranged with the intention to champion the progres-sive attitudes of artists and writers, despite the traditional and close-minded thinking of their time, such as the wall dedicated to Lili Elbe, a Danish transgender woman and among the early recipients of sex reassignment surgery, but felt like it had left out some of the more problematic relationships of art history, which seems like a dangerous deci-sion. They touch on Picasso’s relationship with Dora Maar, and how she flipped gender roles somewhat by making him into her muse, and although they mention their break up, they failed to mention all the other wrongdoings on the part of Picasso towards his many other lovers. A highlight of the show for me personally was the small section on Hans Bellmer and his partner Unica Zürn, as I’m very interested in his work, which is very dark and overtly sexual, possibly problematic, his sculptures depicting girls who have just reached puberty. I  assumed he would have worked mainly on his own, with his work perhaps not being accepted by women in the most part, but was pleasantly surprised to find out about his long term relationship, and to read about how they worked together most of the time, with Zürn being a surrealist, and so also making work with extremely explicit and sexual overtones. The exhibition felt lacking to me as a whole however, it seemed like the curators had been extremely ambitious but the content had been spread thin. The theme connecting all the different works wasn’t the strongest to keep the spirit of the show running through-out, as having a couple paintings by each artist (usually not their best works, as they had to be related to theme of couples) and then a bit of text from a novel here and there wasn’t the most enthusing content. The small sections on each partnership, and the extreme diversity between their practices (abstract paintings followed by furniture) made it feel like the viewer is flitting around between very separate topics, and gives a sense of detachment which holds back any possibility of getting absorbed. When promoting the show, the Barbican put the artists of the exhibition front and centre, making me and others assume it would display as a collection of their work, but instead was laid out as a biography of notable relationships, and so was mainly populated with long sections of text, with a few art objects illus-trating the points made. Although I enjoyed finding out a little more about a few of the artists in the show, I couldn’t help but think the show would have been better if they had reduced the list of names slightly, and populated more of the exhibition with comparisons of the couples’ work. I would recommend people visit the show, but not to bother trying to read everything, and simply to zone in on the shows highlights, namely the inspiring LGBTQ couples, and the unsung women who’s work was largely ignored because of their famous male counterparts.