As surrealism is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year, Brussels is celebrating it with two exhibitions on Belgium's famous avant-garde movement – both opening today.
From Wednesday, Bozar is highlighting the Belgian scene in Histoire de ne pas rire. Surrealism in Belgium and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts (KMSKB) is bringing together international surrealists with its Imagine exhibition.
"As in Paris, surrealist activities also started in Belgium in 1924 with bold pamphlets," the Bozar exhibition announced. "Belgium’s quirky surrealists go beyond the purely aesthetic – they want to transform the world with their subversive art."
While Belgium is known across the world as the country of surrealism (and is occasionally even called a surrealist country), it was French writer André Breton, who started the movement with his first Surrealist Manifesto, in 1924, a century ago. Breton took a stand for art and literature without the control of reason, arguing that the subconscious, the dream world, had to flow out nicely and freely.
Surrealist state of mind
"You cannot call surrealism a real style, it is more of a state of mind," Ann Geeraerts, assistant curator of the exhibition at Bozar, told VRT. The Belgian surrealists provided "everyday reality with a twist": they had humour and were very politically engaged.
With Histoire de ne pas rire, Bozar pays extra attention to their international interactions, political-historical background, and important female artists. The exhibit includes works by Paul Nougé (who guides the exhibition), René Magritte, Jane Graverol, Marcel Mariën, Rachel Baes, Leo Dohmen, Paul Delvaux, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Salvador Dalí, Giorgio De Chirico, and many others.
In Brussels' Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels (KMSKB), the Imagine exhibition is the first of a series of international surrealism exhibitions. After Brussels, the exhibition will travel to Paris, Madrid, Hamburg and Philadelphia, which will all use a different approach.
The KMSKB urges visitors to "discover the poetry of the world's most famous surrealist artists through themes such as the dream, the labyrinth, metamorphosis, the unknown and the subconscious" through more than 130 artworks (paintings, works on paper, sculptures, objects, assemblages and photographs).
With Belgium holding the Presidency of the Council of the European Union until June, the museum called 2024 "the appropriate year to highlight surrealism" – the movement that put Belgium on the international map while finding meaning within a European context.
Histoire de ne pas rire at Bozar from 21 February to 16 June 2024; Imagine at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts from 21 February to 21 July 2024. Visitors can buy a duo ticket to see both exhibitions for €29.
