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A telephone receiver that morphs into a lobster. A miniature train that rushes from a fireplace.
These are just a few of the familiar images associated with Surrealism, a revolutionary idea sparked in Paris around 1924 that asserted the unconscious and dreams over the familiar and everyday. While Surrealism has generated often poetic and even humorous works, it has also been taken up by artists around the world as a weapon in the struggle for political, social, and personal freedom.
Nearly from its inception, Surrealism has had an international scope, but knowledge of the movement has been formed primarily through a Western European focus. Join Stephanie D’Alessandro, the Leonard A. Lauder Curator of Modern Art and Senior Research Coordinator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Met, and explore this exhibition, which reconsiders the true “movement” of Surrealism beyond boundaries of geography and chronology—and within networks that span Eastern Europe to the Caribbean, Asia to North Africa, and Australia to Latin America. Including examples from almost eight decades and produced across at least 45 countries, Surrealism Beyond Borders offers a fresh appraisal of some of the collective concerns and exchanges—as well as historical, national, and local distinctions—that will recast appreciation of this most revolutionary and globe-spanning movement.
The virtual opening is sponsored by Di Donna Galleries and Phillips.
The exhibition is made possible by the Barrie A. and Deedee Wigmore Foundation.
Additional support is provided by the Placido Arango Fund, the Gail and Parker Gilbert Fund, Alice Cary Brown and W.L. Lyons Brown, the John Pritzker Family Fund, and The International Council of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
It is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Tate Modern.
The catalogue is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the Doris Duke Fund for Publications.
The catalogue is available for purchase at store.metmuseum.org.
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Image: Mayo, Coups de bâtons (Baton Blows) (detail), 1937. Oil on canvas. Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf. © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Photo: bpk Bildagentur / Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf / Achim Kukulies / Art Resource, NY
