15 may, 2024 – 2025
Room 1. Second floor
Exhibition commemorating the centenary of the First Manifesto of Surrealism published in 1924 in Paris by André Breton (1896-1966).
Breton, the main theoretician and founder of the movement, began a new path that is still active today, based on the proposals developed by the different surrealist groups active in different parts of the planet.
Surrealism, after the devastation of the First World War, would seek new modes of artistic and literary expression to become a true conception of the world. Breton conceived surrealism as pure psychic automatism, where thought is expressed without the intervention of reason and without aesthetic or moral concerns, freeing art and literature from rational constraints and merging reality and dreams. Automatic writing would become a medium without censorship or prior planning where dreams and altered states of consciousness are used as sources of inspiration. Exploring the unconscious would reveal deeper truths about human nature as a consequence of the influences of Freudian psychoanalysis.
This exhibition tells a story featuring the manifesto itself, accompanied by works by some of the authors named in the text such as André Breton himself, as well as Macel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst or Vlady Sergé, among others.
The part dedicated to Eugenio Granell stands out with works directly related to André Breton, where we find an exquisite corpse in which Wifredo Lam also participated.
Eduardo Valiña. Curator
