In 1917 Guillaume Apollinaire He coined the surrealist term to talk about the new direction that art was taking (beyond the real). But it was not until October 15, 1924 when André Breton published the ‘surrealist manifesto’. The year … The past was commemorated centenary of one of the most influential avant -garde movements in art history. Breton would publish a second manifesto in 1930. The Mapfre Foundation, which is also celebrated, because He turns 50open its exhibition season, as usual, with two proposals.
One, dedicated to Japanese photographer Sakiko Nomura. We focus on ‘1924. Other surrealisms’which is part of an international project around the centenary of surrealism that has involved five institutions from Europe and the United States. He began his career on February 21, 2024 in the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Belgium, in Brussels; It followed, as of September 4, the Pompidou Center in Paris, which has led the project. After passing through the Mapfre Foundation in Madrid (from February 6 to May 11), it will arrive at the Kunsthalle in Hamburg (June 13, October 2) and will end at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from November. The five exhibitions are different, each one makes its own reinterpretation of surrealism, emphasizing specific aspects.
That of Madrid, who has commissioned Diego’s star, focuses on those other surrealisms on the margins. Through two hundred worksloans of 75 museums, public institutions and private collections (especially, for their generosity the Pompidou de Paris and Philadelphia Museum of Art), emphasizes Spanish artists and Latin America, except exceptions (Dalí, looked, looked, Óscar Domínguez, Buñuel …), as well as in the womenwhich had been excluded from Breton canonical surrealism.


Above, Paul Delvaux. ‘La Aurora’, 1937. Peggy Guggenheim collection, Venice. On these lines, on the left, Joan Miró.
In Spainnames such as Eugenio Granell, Nicolás de Lekuona, José Alemany, Ángel Planells, Joan Massanet, Esteban French … in countries like Argentina and BrazilAntonio Berni, Grete Stern, Horacio Coppola … All of them join the great Popes of surrealism: Magritte, Max Ernst, Dalí, Tanguy, Delvaux, Man Ray, Jean Arp, Brassaï …
Surrealism was one of the artistic movements with the greatest presence of Women artists. However, Breton, who defined them as “Beautiful and Name”gave them the role of Medium. The commissioner has chosen an artist as a guide in each of the sections of the exhibition. There are 35 women included in it. Of Maruja Malloto whom this year will dedicate a great exhibition the Botín de Santander and the Reina Sofía Museum (“if I had been born elsewhere it would be a figure of surrealism,” he warns of Diego), to Varo remediesto whom a sample should be dedicated. It would be an act of justice. From the first, the Art Institut of Chicago has lent ‘the magician’. From the second, a beautiful ‘icon’, from the Malba collection. They are accompanied by Gala, Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning, Meret Oppenheim or Dora Maar. But also much less known names, such as Jane Graverol, Raquel Forner, Maria Martins, Toyen, Rita Kernn-Larsen or Amparo Segarra.
The tour, which begins with a surreal closet created by Marcel Jean, where a landscape is guessed behind the doors and drawers, is divided into three large thematic blocks. The first deals with the artists who were related to Breton or who, on the other hand, had disagreements with him. The latter was the case of Gala and Dalíwho moved away from him, and Belgian surrealism, who wanted to maintain his independence. Dalí exhibits iconic works such as ‘Aphrodisiac telephone’ (a lobster phone) or ‘The gala shoe’; A painting by Frida Kahlo, a loan from the Pérez Simón collection … There are documents, such as Breton’s ‘surreal manifesto’; Letters, Open, one Tarot deck created by Dalí and Gala (she was very fond of) … Breton traveled to Tenerife in 1935. The Canarian presence in this movement is flagged by Óscar Domínguezbut also by names like Eduardo Westerdahl.



Up, Maruja Mallo. ‘The Magician / Pim Pam Pum’, 1926. Art Institut, Chicago. On these lines, on the left, Leonora Carrington.
Sleep and desirematters that hugged the surrealists, occupy a second section. Also, nightmares. Breton spoke in the ‘surreal manifesto’ of a man cut in half through a window that was still walking. The exhibition continues with ‘The Castle of the Surrealists as a memory of the lost paradise’ (the search for the philosopher’s stone, the alchemy, nature) …
In addition to the discoveries on the margins of surrealism offered by the sample, there are iconic works of the movement. From Yves Tanguy, prominent loans from Pompidou (‘At four, in summer, hope’), the MoMa (‘Turning of the useless lights’) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (‘The storm/black landscape’). From Dalí, Pompidou canvases (‘La Vaca Spectral’ and ‘Sleeping Woman, Invisible Horse and León’), the Philadelphia Museum of Art (‘Soft construction with boiled beans. Premonition of the civil war’), its foundation in Figueras ( A study for ‘honey is sweeter than blood’) … by Magritte, two loans from Pompidou (‘The double secret’ and ‘The murderous sky’). De Delvaux, ‘La Aurora, from the Peggy Guggenheim collection in Venice. From Ernst, ‘Chimera’, from Pompidou.
In a circular room, as a chapel, ‘the blue acrobat’ hangs, from Picassoassigned by his museum in Paris, in front of a sculpture of the Brazilian Maria Martins. In another space interviews are projected to Maruja Mallo, Miró and Dalí, made by Joaquín Soler Serrano and Paloma Chamorro. The spectacular ‘dog barking to the moon’, by Miró, from Philadelphia Museum of Art, closes the exhibition.
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