In 1924, amid the wreckage of the Great War, French poet André Breton railed against the values of the world as it was and could never again be, one ruled by realism and rationality. “The mere word ‘freedom’ is the only one that still excites me,” Breton wrote in his Surrealist Manifesto. Revelations of the soul or society weren’t coming in the daytime. Only “the omnipotence of dreams,” he wrote, could liberate humanity. True or not, the ferocity of his belief inspired a century of strange poetry, paintings, sculpture, and more.
To mark the centennial of Surrealism, museums have once again measured the influence that the movement exerted—and still exerts—on art making. From an exhibition of Surrealist works by Caribbean and African Diasporic artists to a show of Surrealism from Eastern Europe, we’ve rounded up the dedicated programming worth catching worldwide.
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Brussels
Image Credit: Collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Artwork copyright © 2024 Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. The Pompidou Center in Paris has organized the year’s largest show of Surrealist art, which makes sense as the institution boasts one the most prodigious collections of such art in the world. “Imagine! 100 Years of International Surrealism” opened in Brussels in February and will arrive at the Pompidou on September 4. From Paris, it will go to Hamburg and Madrid, and finish its run at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2026.
Each partner museum will bring to the core exhibition its own holdings and its own slant on the subject. Its Belgium iteration, for example, pays particular attention to links between Surrealism and Symbolism, an earlier art movement that likewise prioritized visual metaphor over implicit meaning. For the Brussels-bound: the Bozar art center has on view a show focused on Belgian Surrealism, as established by writings of local poet Paul Nougé (through June 16, 2024).
“Imagine! 100 Years of International Surrealism,” Royal Museums of Fine Arts Belgium, Brussels, through July 21, 2024; Centre Pompidou, Musée national d’Art Moderne, Paris, September 4, 2024 through January 13, 2025; Hamburger Kunsthalle, June 12 through October 12, 2025; Fundación Mapfré Madrid, February 4 through May 11, 2025; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Fall 2025 through Spring 2026
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Wakefield, UK
Image Credit: Hepworth Wakefield. Have you ever wished to stand, even for a second, in the desert of Salvador Dalí’s dripping clocks, or have high tea with the minotaur of Leonora Carrington’s dreams? “Forbidden Territories,” at theHepworth Wakefield in northern England, explores the fantastic settings of Surrealist works, where flora and fauna fuse and bodies contort beyond recognition, to tantalizing and repulsive effect. Historical and thematic groupings of artworks will pair Breton’s inner circle from the 1920s with the next generation of Surrealists, such as Man Ray and Lee Miller, and with contemporary practitioners.
“Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes,” Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield, UK, November 23, 2024 through April 27, 2025
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Shanghai
Image Credit: Copyright © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, DACS, London, 2023. “Fantastic Visions: 100 Years of Surrealism,” organized by Shanghai’s Museum of Art Pudong with the National Galleries of Scotland, draws entirely from the collection of the National Galleries’ prodigious holdings of Surrealist art. The show features more than 100 works by over 50 artists—including Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Dorothea Tanning, Joan Miró, and Leonora Carrington—and spanning painting, sculpture, books, collage, and photography. Notably, all of the works on display are being presented in China for the first time.
“Fantastic Visions: 100 Years of Surrealism from the National Galleries of Scotland,” Museum of Art Pudong (MAP), Shanghai, through August 31, 2024
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Munich
Image Credit: The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Copyright © Successió Miró Archive/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2024. Surrealism, for all its interest in dreams and the unconscious, was born in the political and moral wreckage of World War I. Its acolytes denounced all forms of societal oppression, from fascism to colonialism and authoritarianism. “But Live Here? No Thanks: Surrealism + Anti-Fascism,” at Munich’s Lenbachhaus, recontextualizes Surrealism in its political origins and legacy by illustrating how its tenets were embraced by emancipatory episodes in history such as the American civil rights movement and the liberation of North Africa from European occupation. Logically, the artist list extends beyond Paris and includes Manuel Álvarez Bravo from Mexico, the Romanian painter and sculptor Victor Brauner, Chilean abstract expressionist Roberto Matta, and Spanish painter Maruja Mallo.
“But Live Here? No Thanks: Surrealism + Anti-Fascism,” Lenbachhaus, Munich, October 15, 2024 through March 2, 2025
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Gainsville, Florida
Image Credit: Collection of the Harn Museum of Art, Gainsville. Copyright © Estate of Gertrude Abercrombie. “Surrealism at the Harn: A Centennial Celebration,” at the Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, Florida, presents more than 40 works from the museum’s holdings representing 100 years of Surrealism, from its birth in 20th-century Paris to its ongoing global diffusion. Skunder Boghossian (Ethiopia-Armenia), Wifredo Lam (Cuba), and Rufino Tamayo (Mexico) are among the artists who applied, to dazzling effect, the Surrealist ideology to their singular political and natural contexts. Americans Jerry Uelsmann and Celeste Roberge, a photographer and sculptor, respectively, are among the 21st-century cohort.
“Surrealism at the Harn: A Centennial Celebration,” Gainesville, Florida, through June 2, 2024
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Fort Worth, Texas
Image Credit: Copyright © Kenny Rivero. Photograph by Ed Mumford, courtesy of the artist and Charles Moffett, New York. Curated by María Elena Ortiz, “Surrealism and Us”centers the associated histories of Surrealism and the Caribbean and African diaspora within the United States. This is the first intergenerational show dedicated to the subject at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; it takes its inspiration from the essay “1943: Surrealism and Us” by the Martiniquais writer and activist Suzanne Césaire, which leads fantastically with: “Many have believed that surrealism was dead. Many wrote so. Childish nonsense.” The presentation includes more than 80 artworks from the 1940s to today, each testifying to the diverse localizations of the movement.
“Surrealism and Us: Surrealism from Caribbean and African Diasporic Artists Since 1940,” Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas, through July 28, 2024
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Tartu, Estonia
Image Credit: Eesti Rahva Muuseum. At the Eesti Rahva Muuseum in Tartu, Estonia, “Surrealism 100: Prague, Tartu and Other Stories” opens a dialogue between Czech and Estonian Surrealism. This isn’t as unlikely a pairing as it may seem at first glance, given that “the two countries share a complicated history under the influence of the Soviet Union in the 20th century,” according to the museum. Even amid rising institutional interest in how Surrealism migrated out of France, art from Central and Eastern Europe has been largely left out of those in-progress histories. And how can that be? Prague was one of the leading centers of Surrealism during its first run, and its avant-garde residents kept in close touch with their Parisian counterparts.
“Surrealism 100: Prague, Tartu and Other Stories,” Eesti Rahva Msuuseum, Tartu, Estonia, through September 8
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Heilbronn, Germany
Image Credit: Copyright © Marco Brambilla. Opening in late summer at the Kunsthalle Vogelmann in Heilbronn, Germany, “Surrealism: Worlds in Dialogue” puts the Surrealist canon in conversation with its contemporary successors, demonstrating how deeply the movement’s themes and processes guide the zeitgeist. Artists including Yves Tanguy, René Magritte, and Claude Cahun will be paired with the likes of Cindy Sherman, Sarah Lucas, and David Lynch, illuminating the political, gender, and racial dimensions often overshadowed by the fantastical aesthetic. Around 120 objects, from paintings and works on paper to film and an augmented-reality installation, will be on view.
“Surrealism: Worlds in Dialogue,” Kunsthalle Vogelmann, Heilbronn, Germany, August 3, 2024 through January 5, 2025