La Révolution surréaliste at Centre Pompidou: Painting as Revolutionary Form

The Centre Pompidou in Paris mounted "La Révolution surréaliste" from March 6 to June 24, 2002, curated by Werner Spies. The exhibition provocatively centered on painting, despite longstanding debates since Breton's 1924 Manifesto on whether painting could embody surrealist automatism. Critics argued the show reduced surrealism's political, moral, and philosophical dimensions to mere aesthetics. However, Spies assembled an unparalleled collection spanning the 1920s to the 1940s, with loans from MoMA, Museo Reina Sofia, and private collectors. Highlights included dedicated sections to Ernst, Masson, Miró, Tanguy, Bellmer, Dalí, Magritte, and a justified inclusion of Picasso, plus Giacometti. The exhibition successfully rehabilitated Tanguy (1927-28) and early Dalí, often dismissed for later repetitiveness. Masson's American period proved unexpectedly compelling. A feat was the reconstruction of the 1936 Exposition surréaliste d'objets at Charles Ratton's, a polysemic installation from Duchamp to a stuffed anteater. The show argued that surrealism's revolutionary power lies in the singular forms invented by individual artists—not in collective doctrine. Breton's key texts "Surréalisme et la peinture" (1928) and "Genèse et perspectives artistiques du surréalisme" (1941) consist of fragments on single artists, rejecting generalities. The exhibition omitted the decline into 1950s academicism, leaving visitors to ponder contemporary creators of singular forms.