A Surrealist Wunderkammer at the Menil Collection + Interview with Paul R. Davis, Curator of Collections
A Surrealist Wunderkammer
Ongoing
Behind a theatrical curtain in the Menil’s Surrealism galleries, A Surrealist Wunderkammer is an idiosyncratic and culturally heterogeneous display of objects identified with brass number tags. The exhibition opened in 1999 with the title Witnesses—A Surrealist Wunderkammer, which changed to Witnesses to a Surrealist Vision with a revised display in 2001. Anthropologist Edmund S. Carpenter (1922–2011) originally conceived both of these installations in relation to the exceptional collection of Surrealism assembled by John and Dominique de Menil, his in-laws. The single-gallery installation presents more than 300 works from the museum’s collection or on long-term loan from the de Menil family and Rock Foundation.
Wunderkammern (“wonder rooms”), also known as cabinets of curiosities, developed in Europe during the 16th century as royal treasuries and storehouses for collections of art, curiosities, and natural marvels. They were the precursors to 19th-century museums of natural history and ethnography, which became central repositories for objects collected by European and American missionaries, colonial administrators, and ethnologists in Africa, the Americas, Asia, and the Pacific Islands. Even though their politics were anti-colonial, Surrealists regularly visited these museums and were closely associated with the burgeoning market for “Primitive Art” fueled by colonialism, military conflict, and looting.
A Surrealist Wunderkammer presents an interpretive matrix for understanding the nature and psychology of humanity from the perspective of Surrealism. Artists associated with the movement were avid collectors of ethnographic objects, natural ephemera, and other items that demonstrated visual puns, raw sensuality, and conceptual dualisms such as silent music and static dance. They expropriated and invented new meanings for the objects they collected, sometimes with a limited understanding of their original use or cultural history. Found objects, tourist curios, and fakes, along with 19th-century European astrolabes, anamorphoscopes, and other visual technologies included in the exhibition underscore the multitude of sources Surrealists used to pursue their interests in accessing the authenticity of dreams, the power of the unconscious, and a universal structure of mythology.
In Conversation with Paul R. Davis
Curator of Collections
As the curator for A Surrealist Wunderkammer, what is the history of this display, and how has it developed over time under your leadership?
Conceived by Edmund Carpenter (1922-2011), the husband of Adelaide de Menil, the exhibition first opened in August 1999 as Witnesses—A Surrealist Wunderkammer. Working with then Menil director Paul Winkler and museum staff, Carpenter envisioned the exhibition as a way to highlight the diverse visual cultures that informed the thinking of artists affiliated with Surrealism. The displays in natural history museums and homes of Surrealists, as well as the theories of Structural Anthropology, greatly influenced Carpenter's vision for the project. Two years after the exhibition opened, Carpenter and Menil staff added more works to the exhibition and changed the name to Witnesses to a Surrealist Vision.
The exhibition remained mostly unchanged during the last 20-plus years, but there have been meaningful interventions with the project, and we are currently working on updating the installation. Houston-based Filipino artist Matt Manalo brought our attention to the historical and cultural issues of the print depicting "Prince Giolo" or "The Painted Prince". Most recently, we returned to Carpenter's original title for the exhibition and published a new gallery guide with new information and reflecting current research on the works on view. We are also working on a more substantial and informative presence about the exhibition for visitors to the museum's website.
How is this presentation an homage to the Surrealist movement, now roughly a century old, that interrogates and undermines hieratic notions of what art is?
John and Dominique de Menil are somewhat inextricable from the history of Surrealism, and it is hard to overestimate their role in bringing awareness to the movement in the United States. They were ardent supporters of the artists and their work. They and their children maintained close relationships with many of them—Max Ernst, René Magritte, Roberto Matta, Victor Brauner, etc. Carpenter's project emerged out of these relationships and intellectual appreciation for the ideas of Surrealism. Gallery guides to the exhibition after 2001 suggest Carpenter also thought of the project as an homage to Dominique de Menil. Before she died in 1997, she had been in conversation with Carpenter about initiating the project.
Many visitors understandably see the exhibition in relationship to Surrealism, the creative acuity of André Breton and other artists. While Surrealism was arguably an avant-garde movement to undermine art, from another perspective, people encounter the exhibition as a space that reinforces the Western-centric perceptions of art from other cultures. They encounter the space as a site imbued with cultural expropriations and forced transformations of indigenous societies that resulted from settler colonialism. Both points of view are important, but it can be challenging to keep both these ways of seeing or experiencing the exhibition in mind.
What are your favorite juxtapositions presented in A Surrealist Wunderkammer?
At first, Carpenter did not want any correspondences between objects to be apparent. He wanted to emphasize "chaos" and "chance encounters" in the curation of the original display. His curatorial direction changed in the 2001 reinstallation of the gallery. Carpenter created specific and thematic groupings. He highlighted many of these groups in the gallery guide, but my favorite relationship between objects on view went unmentioned.
Carpenter was a respected scholar of media and communication theory. During his career, he worked closely with Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan— "the medium is the message." Notably, as part of the 2001 changes to the exhibition, Carpenter wanted to include 19th-century visualizing technologies—phenakistoscope, glass slide lantern, camera obscura, cinematograph, thaumatropes, etc. Charles-Émile Reynaud and other early technologists used these to make still images move, creating motion pictures and forever altering our perception of reality. Next to these paradigmatic, world-altering fetishes (if you will), Carpenter displayed religious and shamanic technologies from the Indigenous peoples of North America and Australia. From my perspective, Carpenter intentionally put these two similar-but-different worlds in conversation. He had a deep appreciation for the way Indigenous peoples conceived an object's socio-spiritual efficacy. Given the everyday ubiquity and our growing dependencies on technology making our world real, this relationship in the exhibition was incredibly prescient.
We have read that the first piece of 'tribal' art the de Menils acquired was a 19th-20th century painted Lake Sentani bark cloth sourced from Parisian art dealer Jacques Viot in 1932. Can you elaborate on the evolution of the de Menils' fascination with non-Western traditional arts?
Actually, it is difficult to say with certainty what the de Menils first acquired from Africa, Oceania, or the Indigenous Americas. Living in France during the early 20th century, the de Menils were at an epicenter of human creativity around the world. By the time they had acquired the Lake Sentani maro from Jacques Viot, they had attended the Exposition Coloniale Internationale held in Paris in 1931. The Exposition opened around the same time John and Dominique married, and they acquired some of their objects from different displays while visiting. Earlier still, John de Menil traveled to the South Pacific in the 1920s. He visited different Polynesian islands and collected examples of tapa. The museum still has many of these examples. John de Menil was a central protagonist in developing a collection of visual culture from Africa, Oceania, and Indigenous Americas. William Middleton excellently discusses this early phase of collecting in Double Vision. In the years that followed, Adelaide de Menil and Carpenter continued to develop these areas of the collection. They made many of the most important acquisitions of work from the Pacific Islands and Indigenous Americas. Today, these objects from these regions at the Menil Collection are among the most artistically and historically significant examples in the United States.
For those interested in expanding their knowledge on the relationship between non-Western art forms and Surrealism, what core themes can be examined further with regard to the collecting history of the de Menils?
The intersections of Surrealism and the visual cultures of Africa, the Pacific Islands, and Indigenous Americas are longstanding subjects of popular interest and academic study. With the 100-year anniversary of Surrealism, it is a hot topic. There are so many books, articles, essays, blogs! Some of the studies I return to often are by James Clifford, Katharine Conley, Thomas McEvilley, Philippe Peltier, and Sally Price. Kristina Van Dyke and William Middleton's contributions to study of the de Menils and their collecting are foundational. The Menil Bookstore offers many of the more recent and relevant titles.
In 2018, The Menil Collection underwent significant renovations to Italian architect Renzo Piano's original structure. Considering your role in these efforts, how did these facility upgrades shape and condition the presentation of art the public interacts with today? What opportunities did it present for you as Curator of Collections?
The project in 2018 focused on staining the wood floors and important updates to the museum's facilities, such as the fire suppression system. It did not alter Piano's original architectural design, but the project did occasion the opportunity to revisit gallery layouts, displays, and highlight areas of the collection that had never been on view. Dominique de Menil had curated many of the first displays at the museum. In the ancient Mediterranean and Medieval Europe galleries, she had been the last person to touch some of the objects in wall cases, etc. The 2018 project afforded museum curators a rare opportunity to imagine new possibilities for displays and highlight new research on works while keeping the founders' vision close at heart. We created new gallery layouts with updated lighting and displays to emphasize collection strengths and themes, such as highlighting works related to the Image of the Black in Western Art project the de Menils started in 1960. Working with objects from all over the world and from every period before the modern era, the project was all-consuming and an incredible learning process.
Looking to the future, what can your community and visitors worldwide anticipate from the Menil Collection in the year ahead? In the realm of 'tribal art,' will any previously unseen works be exhibited?
The museum holds more than 5,000 works from Africa, Oceania, and the Indigenous Americas. Many of these have never been on view in the galleries. We are doing more extensive research projects on specific objects. As we develop a more robust understanding of their historical and cultural significance, we develop exhibitions and displays in the galleries. But, the richness and depth of the collection assembled by the de Menils is incredible, and a lot of this work is collaborative with Indigenous communities and artists who share their cultural knowledge. We look forward to sharing these projects with visitors to the museum and the Menil's website.
Are there plans at The Menil Collection for major exhibitions of traditional arts from Oceania, Asia, and/or Africa?
In 2023, I curated Art of the Cameroon Grassfields, A Living Heritage of Houston, an exhibition that focused on works from Cameroon in Houston collections and provided the opportunity to engage with American-Cameroonian organizations in the city. Updates and changes to A Surrealist Wunderkammer scheduled for this year are a major focus, but there are more exhibition projects and programs focusing on the visual cultures from Africa and the Pacific Islands in development. From our ongoing research on the collection, we are routinely changing the works on view in the galleries. For example, a new installation of throwing knives from Central and North Africa will be completed in May. Becoming a member or signing up for the Menil newsletter at menil.org is a great way to keep an eye out for updates. The museum is always free, and readers should visit as often as they can.
Art of the Ancestors extends a special thank you to Paul R. Davis and Jennifer Greene.