✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Visual Arts

Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, V&A review ★★★★★

22 May 21 – 31 Dec 21, 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM

The heroine of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books has influenced fashion, art and even politics. This blockbuster exhibition at the V&A charts Alice’s enduring appeal

By Holly O'Mahony on 21/5/2021

22 CW readers are interested
Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, V&A. Credit: Victoria and Albert Museum
Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, V&A. Credit: Victoria and Albert Museum
Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, V&A review 5 Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, V&A review Kristina Foster
Lewis Carroll’s Alice books, about a seven-year-old girl who finds herself in a topsy-turvy world of talking creatures, governing playing cards and nonsensical morals, have enchanted readers young and old since Victorian times. But their influence has spread far beyond the page, touching everything from fashion to film, art to advertising and pop-culture to politics. A new blockbuster exhibition at the V&A, curated by award-winning designer Tom Piper, charts the evolution of Alice through the ages, showcasing why, 158 years after her inception, the heroine continues to inspire and delight today.


Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and the sequel, Alice Through the Looking-Glass (1871), begin with Alice in the real world, learning lessons and reading in the drawing room before her adventures begin. Similarly, Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser opens with a history lesson. Poring over manuscripts and objects of interest encased in glass, we learn about the real-life inspiration behind the books: from Carroll – then going by his birth name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson – befriending Alice Liddell, daughter of the Dean of Christ Church Oxford and the real-life inspiration of the books, to collaborating with political cartoonist John Tenniel, whose illustrations in the original publications are as famous as the words they depict.



Photo: © Victoria and Albert Museum


Armed with context, we venture next through an immersive corridor of cardboard doors and flying papers, a playful display which sets the tone for what’s to follow in this expansive, thorough and visually captivating exhibition.


A fiery, peach-hued room, lauded over by a menacing giant caterpillar, documents Alice’s journey from page to screen. The fantastical elements of Carroll’s story have continued to play an important role in the development of CGI, pushing animators beyond pre-existing boundaries. Like a walk-in, cinematic library, the room takes us from Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stowe’s original 1903 movie – a monochrome short that, at 10 minutes long, was the longest film of its day – through to Tim Burton’s live action reimaginings of 2010 and 2016. Due space is given to Disney’s 1951 cartoon masterpiece, animated by the brilliant Mary Blair, which remains a jewel in the production studio’s ever-growing canon.



Photo: © Victoria and Albert Museum


Also on show – and more interesting than the looping snippets from the major films – are the proposed scripts and sketches that never made it to the screen. Walt Disney patented the title Alice in Wonderland back in 1938 and discussed potential directions for the movie separately with surrealist Salvidor Dali, studio artist David Hall, and writer and philosopher Aldous Huxley, before offering the commission to Blair. With visuals from the subsequent Disney film firmly etched in our minds, it’s fascinating – and jarring – to see on paper the alternate routes the movie could have taken.


In a darkened woodland, under the watchful eye of a certain grinning cat, we learn of the Alice books’ influence on the surrealist movement, with Eileen Agar and Edward Burra as well as Dali among those whose works, at times, drew on the more sinister elements of Carroll's world.



Photo: © Victoria and Albert Museum

Headstrong and unafraid to question the status quo, Alice later became an icon for counter-culture in the 1960s and 70s. More grown-up examinations of the story fixated on the fluidity of Alice’s identity – something she is unafraid to question. This led to the Alice in Wonderland statue in New York’s Central Park becoming the chosen location for Yayoi Kusama’s sexually liberated naked happening in 1968. While the psychedelic movement used the more trippy liaisons in Alice’s tale for anti-drug messaging – and later as a celebration of experimentation.


The exhibition reaches a visual climax in a room dedicated to the Mad Hatter’s tea party, where a mesmerising, life-sized table dressed for high tea is brought to life by swirling, psychedelic projections.



Photo: © Victoria and Albert Museum


Space is also given to reflect on Alice’s influence on other cultures: from Spain, where the story is injected with a political undercurrent, to Japan, where Tenniel’s illustrations inspired an ongoing girlish fashion trend realised through long striped stockings and puff-sleeved pinafore dresses.


Fashion takes centre stage in the final throes of the exhibition in a chamber dedicated to Alice-inspired dresses designed by titan of the runway Vivienne Westwood and powerful images by fashion photographer Tim Walker from his landmark 2018 edition of the Pirelli Calendar, in which he reimagined Alice with an all-black cast.



Photo: © Victoria and Albert Museum

Delicate, design-led installations comprise the centrepiece of most rooms and will delight visitors of all ages. Equally likely to evoke a sense of wonder is a virtual reality experience inviting guests to immerse themselves in the story’s nightmarish game of croquet (but with only a handful of headsets available, expect a wait to play). Meanwhile, running at waist-height in several wings are fact trails and interactive elements ready to engage junior gallery-goers.


Alice may have begun her journey tumbling down a rabbit hole in the mid-1800s, but almost 170 years on, her shape-shifting persona continues to take on new meanings and excite fresh audiences. The V&A’s scrupulously curated exhibition captures the appeal of Alice through the ages, and hints at the potential for future generations to continue to see Carroll’s headstrong heroine as a symbol of empowerment and a portal through which to explore your own identity.




What Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser, V&A review
Where V&A, South Kensington, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 2RL | MAP
Nearest tube South Kensington (underground)
When 22 May 21 – 31 Dec 21, 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Price £20
Website Click here for more information



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 3–5 February
Things to do in London this weekend: 3–5 February
Gemma Arterton in Funny Woman, Sky Max (Photo: Sky)
What to watch on TV this week
London exhibitions on now — Peter Doig, Courtauld Gallery
Top 15 exhibitions on now in London

Editor's Picks

Yayoi Kusama, Chandelier of Grief. Tate Modern
Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms, Tate Modern
David Hockney, No. 259, 24th April 2020 iPad painting © David Hockney
David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy
Yayoi Kusama, Chandelier of Grief. Tate Modern
Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms, Tate Modern
David Hockney, No. 259, 24th April 2020 iPad painting © David Hockney
David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy
Yayoi Kusama, Chandelier of Grief. Tate Modern
Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms, Tate Modern
David Hockney, No. 259, 24th April 2020 iPad painting © David Hockney
David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
22

Alice in Wonderland

V&A

Design

Visual Arts

You might like

  • Yayoi Kusama, Chandelier of Grief. Tate Modern

    Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirror Rooms, Tate Modern ★★★★★

  • David Hockney, No. 259, 24th April 2020 iPad painting © David Hockney

    David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy ★★★★★

  • Tim Walker 'Karen Elson, Sgaire Wood & James Crewe', London, 2018 (c) Tim Walker Studio

    Review Tim Walker V&A exhibition ★★★★★

  • Ryoji Ikeda 180 The Strand

    Ryoji Ikeda at 180 The Strand exhibition review ★★★★★

  • Michael Armitage, The Paradise Edict, 2019. The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection ©Michael Armitage. Photo: ©White Cube (Theo Christelis).

    Michael Armitage: Paradise Edict exhibition, Royal Academy ★★★★★

  • Film still from

    Kehinde Wiley exhibition, National Gallery



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×