Can surrealism be erotic? Yes if women can reclaim their power, says a London exhibition
‘Unveiled Desires: Fetish & The Erotic in Surrealism, 1924–Today’ at London’s Richard Saltoun gallery examines the role of desire in the avant-garde movement
‘What fascinates me about surrealism in the context of the erotic is how it transforms desire into a language of liberation,’ says Maudji Mendel of RAW (Rediscovering Art by Women) on the eve of her exhibition opening.
It is a topic she has been considering, in the context of overlooked women artists of the 20th century, for the exhibition ‘Unveiled Desires: Fetish & The Erotic in Surrealism, 1924–Today’, opening at Richard Saltoun gallery during London’s Frieze Week. Organised into two parts, the first running until November 2025 and the second until February 2026, it explores desire and fetish as a neglected part of the surrealist movement.
Anna Sampson, The Sadeian Woman II, 2025
A celebration of the power of the unconscious, surrealism has always had its roots in the instinctive. ‘Yet for much of its early history, the female body existed as fetish or fantasy, as a vessel for male projection rather than self-definition,’ Mendel argues. ‘I’m drawn to how female and queer artists have since turned that gaze back on itself, reclaiming the erotic as a site of agency and defiance. In ‘Unveiled Desires’, the erotic is no longer submissive or ornamental; it’s transgressive. Desire becomes a tool of disruption – an act of rebellion against moral and aesthetic control, and a way of reimagining the body as something both intimate and political.’
Pierre Molinier, Sur le pavois, planche 26 du Chaman [On the Shield, plate 26 of The Shaman], 1968-1970
Jennifer Binnie, Fetish Object III, 2016
Artists gathered here, from Helen Chadwick to Jesse Darling, Sin Wai Kin and Meret Oppenheim, explore the freedom of the body through mixed mediums, from sculpture to painting and photography. Here, desire is disturbing, humorous, seductive or repellent, and consistently honest.
‘There is immense power in reclaiming the erotic as something self-authored,’ Mendel adds. ‘The artists in “Unveiled Desires” reveal how the body can exist as both a site of trauma and transcendence; how desire can expose social taboos while simultaneously generating new languages of selfhood.’ In shifting the gaze from passive to active, we can reclaim freedom over the body. ‘In dialogue with one another, the artists expose the erotic as a living tension between vulnerability and power – a space where to be seen is to resist.’
‘Unveiled Desires: Fetish & The Erotic in Surrealism, 1924–Today’. Part 1: until 29 November 2025. Part 2: 9 December 2025 – 14 February 2026
