Surrealism Exhibition at Mudec Milan Traces Movement's Origins and Legacy

Mudec in Milan hosts 'Dalí, Magritte, Man Ray and Surrealism. Masterpieces from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen of Rotterdam', an exhibition exploring the birth, evolution, and forms of Surrealist ideas in 20th-century art. The show features nearly 200 works from the Boijmans Van Beuningen collection, juxtaposed with objects from Mudec's permanent collection to highlight the movement's critical engagement with colonialism. The exhibition's catalogue chronology begins with Leonardo da Vinci, Arcimboldo, and Hieronymus Bosch, arguing that surreal qualities have always been present in art. Surrealism formally emerged in early 1920s France from Dada, coined by Guillaume Apollinaire and defined by André Breton's 1924 Manifesto as 'pure psychic automatism' to express the true functioning of thought without rational control. The movement drew on Freudian concepts of the unconscious and subconscious, aiming for a mental revolution that would lead to social and political change. Works on view include Salvador Dalí's 'Impressions of Africa' (1938) and his films with Luis Buñuel, René Magritte's 'The Red Model III' (1937), Man Ray's sculptures and photographs, Max Ernst's collages, and Marcel Duchamp's 'Box in a Valise' (1952). The exhibition runs at Mudec in Milan.