When nothing is what it seems

MICHAL BONCZA recommends an exhibition that does Rene Magritte quiet justice

Cinema / 1 October 2026 Film round-up: October 1, 2026 1 October 2026 MARIA DUARTE, JAMES WALSH and ANGUS REID review Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, The Weight, The Portuguese House, and Child

GAVIN O’TOOLE is chilled by astounding reportage of Donald Trump’s first year in office, and its deployment of retribution as spectacle

PAUL DONOVAN welcomes Brown's embrace of active social citizenry and a multipolar world. But what about Corbyn, Gordon?

WILL STONE participates and enjoys an evening that treats pop as another uniform to wear

TONY BURKE speaks to Clotilde Rullard Nacoulma and Achille Nacoulma of the band Kananaye from Burkina Faso

JOHN GREEN savours a laconic, witty and evocative exploration of the overlooked beauties of lesser- and un-known Britain

IT’S SATURDAY mid-afternoon and there’s an unexpected 30-deep queue outside the gallery that’s neatly secluded in the otherwise deserted mews in this Georgian/neoclassical part of town. We will be ushered in, free of charge, in twos and threes as earlier admissions leave with their furrowed brows and distant looks in their eyes, glazed by Magritte’s visions.

The crowds atest to the continuous popular appeal of Magritte’s uniquely enigmatic work and how much the universe of his perceptions can comfortably nest in everyday life, exciting with its improbable and yet obvious rearrangements of reality. The inspired Chiaroscuro illumination of the exhibition space disciplines our focus and secures an intimacy Magritte’s work gains immeasurably from. No visual periphery to distract.

Surrealism (like Dadaism) was a form of artistic PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) brought about by the horrendous experience of WWI which left 20 million dead in its wake. As the hecatomb, the ritual sacrifice on a mass scale, escaped normal rationale, Freudian psychoanalysis and theory of dreams offered tentative solace. Marxism offered reason and in due course Magritte would take it up.

The exhibition juxtaposes Magritte canvasses with works by about 40 artists, many created specifically for the exhibition — a curious idea that doesn’t quite cut the mustard. Intriguing as some of these pieces are, such as Anna Wayant’s My Pony, 2019 or Dana Schutz’s The Singer, 2026, the majority are no match for Magritte’s captivating imagination.

Too few offer the emotionally eloquent companionship and the clarity of vision present in all of Magritte’s canvasses, much less employ his subtle humour or ridicule, of which the 1936 Philosopher’s Lamp is simply a delicious exemplar. Might it be an comic allusion to Diogenes’s search lamp, held up in broad daylight in a desperate search for truth and honesty, and/or perhaps, an “I am keeping my nose out of everybody else’s business” take on the popular idiom.

His sky filled with drifting Cumulus clouds is nevertheless The Curse, 1931 — a post WWI subversion of innocence where beautiful clear blue skies made deadly aerial attacks possible and clouds might conceal airplanes? Perhaps a subconscious and fatalistic anticipation of Guernica bombing, which would, six years later in 1937, inspire Le Drapeau noir (The Black Flag, not exhibited)?

The lighthearted Reclining Nude, 1928 portrays the love of his life Georgette Berger; The Listening Room (with a gigantic green apple), 1958 and The Art Of Living, 1967, will unsettle. Perhaps the most perplexing is the ambivalent metamorphosis in The Red Model, 1947/48 — is it skin to leather or vice versa?

Magritte was adamant: “Mystery means nothing, it is unknowable” and yet to this day these canvasses thrill and intrigue with a potent, enigmatic unknowable.

Magritte’s visions are deeply humane and his political convictions explicit: “My art is valid only insofar as it is opposed to the bourgeois ideal in whose name life is being extinguished.” You’re spot on mate, you may want to add.

What is less known is that he joined the Belgian Communist Party twice, first in 1932 and then in 1945. Magritte was close friends with one of the the party’s founders and principal theoretician of the Belgian surrealists Paul Nouge, who insisted Surrealism was “less a doctrine than an attitude.”

Hats off to Gagosian for this rare treat and, since it is free, it is certainly worth investing in a bus or train fare, from almost anywhere in the south-east, for a day out escapade.

Runs until December 12, 2026. For more information see: gagosian.com  

Photography / 15 September 2026 Catherine Opie: who gets to be visible? 15 September 2026 KATARZYNA KOSMALA introduces a retrospective by one of the most significant figures in contemporary US photography

Exhibition review / 4 August 2026 Non-objects, blood sacrifice and doorways to the unknown 4 August 2026 SIMON DUFF is thrilled by a visceral, no-holds-barred exploration of the expressive powers of raw material 

Exhibition review / 22 May 2026 Roy Oxlade: Britain’s brilliant tearaway 22 May 2026 MIRANDA RICHMOND relishes the gloriously liberated art of Roy Oxlade, and traces his method back to the thinking of David Bomberg, his acknowledged teacher  

Exhibition review / 3 March 2026 ‘Music remains an intrinsic part of us during migration’ 3 March 2026 SIMON PARSONS applauds an artist who rescues and rehumanises stories of women, the victims of violence, from a feminist perspective