In 1924, amid the wreckage of the Nice Battle, French poet André Breton railed in opposition to the values of the world because it was and will by no means once more be, one dominated by realism and rationality. “The mere phrase ‘freedom’ is the one one that also excites me,” Breton wrote in his Surrealist Manifesto. Revelations of the soul or society weren’t coming within the daytime. Solely “the omnipotence of goals,” he wrote, may liberate humanity. True or not, the ferocity of his perception impressed a century of unusual poetry, work, sculpture, and extra.
To mark the centennial of Surrealism, museums have as soon as once more measured the affect that the motion exerted—and nonetheless exerts—on artwork making. From an exhibition of Surrealist works by Caribbean and African Diasporic artists to a present of Surrealism from Jap Europe, we’ve rounded up the devoted programming value catching worldwide.
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Brussels
The Pompidou Middle in Paris has organized the yr’s largest present of Surrealist artwork, which is sensible because the establishment boasts one essentially the most prodigious collections of such artwork on this planet. “Think about! 100 Years of Worldwide Surrealism” opened in Brussels in February and can arrive on the Pompidou on September 4. From Paris, it’ll go to Hamburg and Madrid, and end its run on the Philadelphia Museum of Artwork in 2026.
Every accomplice museum will carry to the core exhibition its personal holdings and its personal slant on the topic. Its Belgium iteration, for instance, pays explicit consideration to hyperlinks between Surrealism and Symbolism, an earlier artwork motion that likewise prioritized visible metaphor over implicit that means. For the Brussels-bound: the Bozar artwork heart has on view a present centered on Belgian Surrealism, as established by writings of native poet Paul Nougé (via June 16, 2024).
“Think about! 100 Years of Worldwide Surrealism,” Royal Museums of Effective Arts Belgium, Brussels, via July 21, 2024; Centre Pompidou, Musée nationwide d’Artwork Moderne, Paris, September 4, 2024 via January 13, 2025; Hamburger Kunsthalle, June 12 via October 12, 2025; Fundación Mapfré Madrid, February 4 via Might 11, 2025; Philadelphia Museum of Artwork, Fall 2025 via Spring 2026
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Wakefield, UK
Have you ever ever wished to face, even for a second, within the desert of Salvador Dalí’s dripping clocks, or have excessive tea with the minotaur of Leonora Carrington’s goals? “Forbidden Territories,” at theHepworth Wakefield in northern England, explores the implausible settings of Surrealist works, the place natural world fuse and our bodies contort past recognition, to tantalizing and repulsive impact. Historic and thematic groupings of artworks will pair Breton’s interior circle from the Nineteen Twenties with the subsequent era of Surrealists, resembling Man Ray and Lee Miller, and with modern practitioners.
“Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes,” Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, UK, November 23, 2024 via April 27, 2025
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Shanghai
“Improbable Visions: 100 Years of Surrealism,” organized by Shanghai’s Museum of Artwork Pudong with the Nationwide Galleries of Scotland, attracts completely from the gathering of the Nationwide Galleries’ prodigious holdings of Surrealist artwork. The present options greater than 100 works by over 50 artists—together with Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Dorothea Tanning, Joan Miró, and Leonora Carrington—and spanning portray, sculpture, books, collage, and pictures. Notably, the entire works on show are being offered in China for the primary time.
“Improbable Visions: 100 Years of Surrealism from the Nationwide Galleries of Scotland,” Museum of Artwork Pudong (MAP), Shanghai, via August 31, 2024
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Munich
Surrealism, for all its curiosity in goals and the unconscious, was born within the political and ethical wreckage of World Battle I. Its acolytes denounced all types of societal oppression, from fascism to colonialism and authoritarianism. “However Stay Right here? No Thanks: Surrealism + Anti-Fascism,” at Munich’s Lenbachhaus, recontextualizes Surrealism in its political origins and legacy by illustrating how its tenets had been embraced by emancipatory episodes in historical past such because the American civil rights motion and the liberation of North Africa from European occupation. Logically, the artist record extends past Paris and consists of Manuel Álvarez Bravo from Mexico, the Romanian painter and sculptor Victor Brauner, Chilean summary expressionist Roberto Matta, and Spanish painter Maruja Mallo.
“However Stay Right here? No Thanks: Surrealism + Anti-Fascism,” Lenbachhaus, Munich, October 15, 2024 via March 2, 2025
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Gainsville, Florida
“Surrealism on the Harn: A Centennial Celebration,” on the Harn Museum of Artwork in Gainesville, Florida, presents greater than 40 works from the museum’s holdings representing 100 years of Surrealism, from its start in Twentieth-century Paris to its ongoing international diffusion. Skunder Boghossian (Ethiopia-Armenia), Wifredo Lam (Cuba), and Rufino Tamayo (Mexico) are among the many artists who utilized, to dazzling impact, the Surrealist ideology to their singular political and pure contexts. People Jerry Uelsmann and Celeste Roberge, a photographer and sculptor, respectively, are among the many Twenty first-century cohort.
“Surrealism on the Harn: A Centennial Celebration,” Gainesville, Florida, via June 2, 2024
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Fort Value, Texas
Curated by María Elena Ortiz, “Surrealism and Us”facilities the related histories of Surrealism and the Caribbean and African diaspora inside america. That is the primary intergenerational present devoted to the topic on the Fashionable Artwork Museum of Fort Value; it takes its inspiration from the essay “1943: Surrealism and Us” by the Martiniquais author and activist Suzanne Césaire, which leads fantastically with: “Many have believed that surrealism was useless. Many wrote so. Infantile nonsense.” The presentation consists of greater than 80 artworks from the Nineteen Forties to in the present day, every testifying to the various localizations of the motion.
“Surrealism and Us: Surrealism from Caribbean and African Diasporic Artists Since 1940,” Fashionable Artwork Museum of Fort Value, Texas, via July 28, 2024
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Tartu, Estonia
On the Eesti Rahva Muuseum in Tartu, Estonia, “Surrealism 100: Prague, Tartu and Different Tales” opens a dialogue between Czech and Estonian Surrealism. This isn’t as unlikely a pairing as it might appear at first look, provided that “the 2 international locations share an advanced historical past underneath the affect of the Soviet Union within the Twentieth century,” in keeping with the museum. Even amid rising institutional curiosity in how Surrealism migrated out of France, artwork from Central and Jap Europe has been largely overlooked of these in-progress histories. And the way can that be? Prague was one of many main facilities of Surrealism throughout its first run, and its avant-garde residents stored in shut contact with their Parisian counterparts.
“Surrealism 100: Prague, Tartu and Different Tales,” Eesti Rahva Msuuseum, Tartu, Estonia, via September 8
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Heilbronn, Germany
Opening in late summer season on the Kunsthalle Vogelmann in Heilbronn, Germany, “Surrealism: Worlds in Dialogue” places the Surrealist canon in dialog with its modern successors, demonstrating how deeply the motion’s themes and processes information the zeitgeist. Artists together with Yves Tanguy, René Magritte, and Claude Cahun shall be paired with the likes of Cindy Sherman, Sarah Lucas, and David Lynch, illuminating the political, gender, and racial dimensions usually overshadowed by the fantastical aesthetic. Round 120 objects, from work and works on paper to movie and an augmented-reality set up, shall be on view.
“Surrealism: Worlds in Dialogue,” Kunsthalle Vogelmann, Heilbronn, Germany, August 3, 2024 via January 5, 2025