Tim Walker - Wonderful Things review, V&A: a collaboration that seems to benefit no one

The 19thcentury art critic John Ruskin was no fan of the V&A. He called it a “Cretan labyrinth”, so rammed with artworks he had “to be put in the charge of a policeman to get out”.

The present-day photographer, Tim Walker, has a different view, calling the museum “a palace of dreams”. In 2016, he started scouring its 2.3 million-piece collection – with this autumn’s exhibition Tim Walker: Wonderful Things in mind. It features 10 sets of photographs directly inspired by V&A treasures.

Such a show isn’t the privilege granted to just anyone, but in a 25-year career, Walker has made his name creating elaborate scenes in fairytale worlds – that usually end up on the pages of fashion magazines such as Vogue.

The exhibition begins with a very-mini retrospective: a room of Walker images from years gone by. These include the shot he once cited as his favourite: of eight Persian cats, their fur dyed a variety of pastel colours. Elsewhere, celebs aplenty: from Nicole Kidman and Kate Moss to the actress Margot Robbie, about to hurtle down a slide into a giant, cracked egg.

The main event, however, is Walker’s responses to the V&A objects – displayed alongside the objects themselves. These are in a vast exhibition space of ingenious design, separated into 10 distinct sections, each a world of its own, with highly individual lighting, décor and background music.

The opening section, for instance – inspired by a stained-glass window from 1520s Cologne – is dark and soundtracked by religious song. Another – inspired by a 17th-Century girl’s jewel box – boasts startlingly pink carpet and wallpaper.

The downside of such an approach is that, pretty much throughout, the exhibition design overshadows what’s being exhibited. Hardly any of Walker’s photographs linger in the memory; and in some sections, one needs the investigative skills of Poirot to find the object.

It doesn’t help that, in certain sections, we’re dealing with multiple objects. An array of items bequeathed to the V&A by the poet, Edith Sitwell just seems an excuse for Walker to have shot her relative, Tilda Swinton, looking all enigmatic and elfin, in the Sitwell family manor, Renishaw Hall.

Elsewhere, a set of stills from Peter Brook’s 1963 adaptation of Lord of the Flies means we’re looking at photos inspired by another set of photos of a film version of a famous novel. All of which is to say, this is a mightily disorienting exhibition.

It’s hard to know who benefits from this whole hook-up. Certainly not Walker, whose first-rate talent seems restricted by the demand he be reactive rather than purely creative. Not the V&A, whose treasures barely get a look-in. Nor the visitor trying to make some sense of all this. The show’s title may promise wonderful things, but they are few and far between.

Sept 21  to March 8 2020; vam.ac.uk 020 7942 2000