Surrealism at the Centre Pompidou

Roberto Matta: Le poėte (A poet we know) 1945  Centre Pompidou

Matta's brutal figure pointing a revolver at the viewer opens this centenary show of Surrealism. The harsh yellow background shows through his body as if it is his navel. The reference by the young Chilean artist to 'a poet we know', is to André Breton.  The exhibition radiates around the actual manuscript of André Breton's 1924 'Manifesto of Surrealism', lent by the Bibliothėque Nationale, :  

One hundred years later, we can affirm that the Surrealist movement has been very long-lasting- its influence is still around. The highpoint lasted four decades from the 1920s to the 1960s. New generations of artists added to or developed the movement in diverse ways. 

The exhibition has a very jocular entrance way - visitors walk through a monster's mouth:

Strange sounds and murmurings accompany the visitor down a dark corridor with flickering portraits of the main protagonists- Breton, Ernst, Dali et al:

Salvador Dali  Photo booth picture

Surrealism was influenced by Sigmund Freud's ideas about the unconscious mind. The term was coined by French poet Guillaume Apollinaire in 1917, meaning 'beyond'  (sur) realism.  Writers and artists wanted to free their work from rationalism. Surrealism is the stuff of dreams... and nightmares! 

Grete Stern: photo Sueño No. 17: ¿quien sera? (Dream No. 17: who might she be?) 1949
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid

The Exhibition has thirteen areas of subject matter. One of the sections, guarded by a warning sign, is entitled "The Tears of Eros" (the erotica is a little disappointing perhaps!) Picasso's aggressive portrait of a kiss features here: 

Pablo Picasso: Le Baiser (the Kiss) summer, 1925 Musée national Picasso, Paris

"Monsters" is another of the categories. The fertile imagination of Max Ernst provides some monsters, including the one used for the exhibition poster:

Max Ernst: L'ange du foyer (Le triumphe du surréalisme) (The angel of the Hearth- the triumph of surrealism) 1937  Private Collection

Ernst's wife for thirty years was American artist Dorothea Tanner. She illustrates a nightmare scenario with an installation of a bedroom where limbs emerge from the walls and chimney:

Dorothea Tanning: Chambre 202, Hôtel du Pavot, 1970 (Room 202, Hotel Poppy)
Centre Pompidou

A very famous painting by Dorothea Tanning has been loaned from Philadelphia, where this exhibition will travel to at the end of 2025. The never-ending sequence of open doors on the right and the small creature seem to come out of a confusing dream:

Dorothea Tanning: Birthday, 1942 

Dorothea Tanning had recently been introduced to the Surrealists and adopted their ethos whole-heartedly. The dream sequence from Alfred Hitchcock's  "Spellbound"   features in the exhibition, starring Gregory Peck (available on Youtube). Hitchcock famously collaborated with Salvador Dali for this scene. Several of Dali's tortured works figure in the exhibition:

Salvador Dali: Soft Construction with boiled beans (Premonition of Civil War) 1936

The trauma of world war caused the art scene to erupt. Artists and writers progressed from a Dada nihilist view of life during World War one, through to Surrealism with its insights into the unconscious mind during the World War two period.  

Some Dada objects are on show, such as the umbrella made of sponges (a bit heavy in a shower!):

Wolfgang Paalen: Nuage articulé  (Articulated cloud) 1937/2023 Private Collection, Berlin

Man Ray's collage illustrates the famous Surrealist phrase, taken from poet Lautréamont:

"As beautiful as the chance encounter of an umbrella and a sewing machine on a dissecting table":

Man Ray: Beau comme la rencontre fortuite d'une machine à coudre at d'un parapluie sur une table de dissection  1932/3

Surrealist artists loved chance associations and unusual combinations- provoking a 'disquieting strangeness', in Freud's words. All the way from Minneapolis, Dali's lobster-telephone figures in the exhibition:

Salvador Dali: Le téléphone aphrodisiaque (Aphrodisiac telephone) 1938
Minneapolis Institute of Art

A table combined with a fox by Rumanian artist Victor Brauner forms a disturbing or amusing object: 

Victor Brauner: Loup-Table (Wolf-table) 1939/1947 Centre Pompidou

Alice in Wonderland's trip down the rabbit hole was an inspiration for Surrealist artists. René Magritte is a much admired Belgian artist who gives us a curious view of things by juxtaposing incongruous images:

René Magritte: La durée poignardée (Time stabbed) 1938  Art Institute of Chicago

In fact, as Magritte pointed out, there is a connection between smoke from the chimney and the smoking train.

A work by De Chirico which greatly impressed and influenced Magritte in his patching together of strange items is "Love song", where a rubber glove hangs next to a classical bust of Apollo and a ball, against a dreamlike setting:

De Chirico: Le Chant d'amour (The song of love) 1914

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The above painting, said Magritte, was a revelation- for the first time his eyes saw the process of thought.

Surrealism is certainly very cerebral. Giacometti's "Table" figures in the same section: "Chimeras". it is a nightmarish vision (not too much use as a table perhaps?):

Alberto Giacometti: Table 1923  Centre Pompidou

A further section of the exhibition is devoted to the forest- a place where strange animals might lurk among the dark trees. Max Ernst gives us his poetic vision of the forest at dawn:

 

Max Ernst: Nature dans la lumière de l'aube (Nature in the light of dawn) 1936
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Mein

Séraphine worked as a humble cleaner in the town of Senlis; she had a naive, mystic vision of the world. She was discovered by art critic Wilhelm Uhde, whose sister bequeathed the following work to the Pompidou Centre:

 

Séraphine de Senlis: L'Arbre du paradis (The Tree of paradise) ca 1929-1930  Centre Pompidou

In the section devoted to 'Hymns of the night', Magritte intrigues us with his night scene set against a bright daytime sky:

René Magritte: L'Empire des lumiėres (The Empire of lights) 1954 
Musées royaux des Beaux-arts de Belgique, Brussels

The last section is entitled "Cosmos". Among diverse planetary, mind-expanding works, there is an imaginative creation by Miró:

Juan Miró: L'Etoile matinale, (The morning star) 16 March 1940   Fondació Joan Miró, Barcelona

The Centenary Exhibition of Surrealism is at the Pompidou Centre from 4th September 2024 until 13th January 2025, then- very fitting for an International movement- travels to Brussels, Madrid, Hamburg and  

Philadelphia (November 2025 to February 20260) 

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