Surrealism / exhibition catalogue

From September 4, 2024 to January 13, 2025, the Centre Pompidou will celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the founding of Surrealism. Presented in Gallery 1 on the 6th floor of the Centre Pompidou, the exhibition will bear witness to the exceptional longevity of the surrealist movement by presenting works from 1924 to 1966 from the main public collections and international private exhibitions. In line with the multidisciplinary exhibitions which have marked the history of the Centre Pompidou, it will focus on highlighting the interest surrealists for poetry, literature as well as for cinema and photography. Reflecting the labyrinthine aspirations of the surrealists, the catalogue, while as the exhibition built in a labyrinth, abolishes the linear approach of movement: its two reading faces represent two ways of entering the surrealist universe. One side gives the reader a poetic glimpse of the artistic movement, reviewing 14 key dimensions, such as the dreams, chimeras, the cosmos, etc. This section is illustrated by 250 reproductions of masterpieces of surrealism. The other side presents the evolution politics of the movement, in 8 major stages from 1924 to 1968. This part chronological is illustrated with 150 documents and archives. Between the two, the reader will find extracts from André Breton's Manifesto, accompanied by an essay by Olivier Wagner, curator at the Library national of France.