This exhibition begins with the idea that there is not just one surrealism or a single way of understanding it. Artists like Arcimboldo, Hieronymus Bosch, de Chirico and Chagall were surrealists before the name even existed. We also find the surrealism of André Bretón, that of those who were expelled from the movement or who questioned it, surrealism after it ended definitively, abstract, figurative or pop surrealism. Perhaps, instead of talking about Surrealism with a capital “S”, we should talk about surrealisms in plural.
The exhibition Surrealisms. From Giorgio de Chirico to Francis Bacon explores the different languages and trajectories of some of the most prominent surrealist artists in history, such as André Masson, Salvador Dalí, Man Ray and Joan Miró. It also includes some young artists who joined the movement during its last stage and who, like the aforementioned, continued to create surrealist art beyond it. The exhibition also reflects on how surrealism is part of the body of work of some artists without the need to adhere to this artistic current or to a single style. This can clearly be seen in figures like Giorgio de Chirico, Marc Chagall and Francis Bacon. Some of these cases have a more evident and assimilated relationship with surrealism, and others might appear alien to this style, although as we will see in this exhibition, they share a noticeable connection.
This collective exhibition takes a transversal approach towards surrealism in the history of contemporary European art that differs to the traditional one, based on works belonging to the Ralli Collection. In it we see a new way of tackling the vast production of surrealist art and its different interpretations.
