Turns out, it’s not all cuckoo clocks, chocolate and ruthless efficiency over in Switzerland. The tiny European nation is also funny, surreal, sexy, weird and very creative. This show of Swiss art from surrealism through to today – named after the street where Dadaism was invented in Zurich – paints a bizarre, twisted and hugely expressive picture of Swiss visual culture.
The star of the show is Manon’s boudoir, a salmon pink yurt in the middle of the gallery. Inside, it’s all washed-up glitz and fading glamour. Used coffee cups litter the floor, unopened wine sits to the side. The bed is unmade, the telephone hangs off the hook. Imagine Tracey Emin’s bed but after the best party in the world rather than the most miserable week of your life.
There are other highlights: a sombre Giacometti portrait, a frazzled, drug-addled semi-nude by Jill Mulleady, an awesome painting of yet another unmade bed by Méret Oppenheim, an enormous Fischli & Weiss vase.
The whole show feels like the result of late-night debauchery. It’s a hangover of an exhibition, it’s art screaming with a desire to let go and bust loose. Maybe Switzerland’s a whole load of fun after all. ν Eddy Frankel