Belgium's Royal Museums of Fine Arts, MRBAB, will launch a travelling exhibition on 21 February 2024 to mark the centennial of the Surrealist movement, in collaboration with the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
The 'Imagine!' travelling exhibition will offer a poetic exploration of surrealism through various themes, including dreams, labyrinths, metamorphoses, the unknown, and the subconscious, according to the MRBAB.
Visitors will be guided through the 20th-century artistic movement’s history, featuring prominent artists such as Max Ernst, Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dalí, Dorothea Tanning, Joan Miró, Jane Graverol, Leonor Fini, and Man Ray.
Each partnering museum will host the core of the travelling exhibition, with a focus on their own collections. MRBAB in Brussels aims to deliver a comprehensive understanding of surrealism viewed from a symbolist perspective, showcasing over 130 artworks, including paintings, works on paper, sculptures, assemblages, and photographs.
The “Imagine!” exhibition aims to accentuate the ties, similarities and divergences between surrealism and one of its precursors, symbolism, according to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts.
The centennial commemoration of ‘The Surrealist Manifesto’ (1924), the movement’s importance for Belgium, its dissemination and significance in an optimum European context, at a time when Belgium is preparing to chair the European Council, makes 2024 an opportune year to celebrate Surrealism, added the institution.
After Brussels and Paris, the exhibition will continue its journey across Europe and internationally, heading to Hamburger Kunsthalle in Germany, followed by Fundación Mapfré in Madrid, Spain, and concluding at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the United States.
