Surrealism: The Poetry of Dreams

Venue: Gallery of Modern Art, South Bank, Brisbane
Dates: 11 June - 2 October 2011
Cost: Adult $20; Concession $16; Members $15; Secondary students $10; Children (12 years & under) Free; Family (1–2 Adults & Children aged 13–17) $50
Season tickets: Adult $60; Concession $48; Member $45

One of the world’s important collections of surrealist art will be shown at Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art this winter.

Queensland Art Gallery Director Tony Ellwood said Paris’s renowned Centre Pompidou would loan the core of its surrealist collection for Surrealism: The Poetry of Dreams, a major survey exhibition showing from June 11 to October 2, 2011. ‘The exhibition will include more than 180 paintings, sculptures, photographs, works on paper and films by 56 artists, dating from 1913 through to the late 1970s,’ Mr Ellwood said.

‘The surrealist collection from the Musée national d’art moderne at the Centre Pompidou is Europe’s most significant and we are thrilled GoMA is the exclusive Australian venue for this superb exhibition.’

‘The exhibition celebrates one of the most important artistic movements of the twentieth-century and offers audiences unprecedented access to an astonishing collection of works. Presented with the support of Events Queensland, this is the first major survey exhibition of surrealist art in Australia since 1993,’ Mr Ellwood said.

Curated by Didier Ottinger, Deputy Director of the Musée national d’art moderne, the exhibition presents a historical overview of Surrealism, charting its evolution from Dada experiments in painting, photography and film, through the metaphysical questioning and exploration of the subconscious in the paintings of Giorgio De Chirico and Max Ernst; to the ready-made objects of Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray’s photographs.

Gaining traction in the early 1920s, the movement's development is explored through the writings of Surrealism’s founder André Breton and key early works by André Masson.

As well as featuring the ‘heavy hitters’ of surrealism (de Chirico, Salvador Dalí, Paul Delvaux, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Man Ray and Yves Tanguy) the organisers promise that it will also reveal the work of artists less frequently exhibited in Australia, such as Hans Bellmer, Victor Brauner, Joseph Cornell, André Masson, Francis Picabia and Raoul Ubac.

‘The Centre Pompidou’s collection captures the diversity, experimentation and excitement of Paris which was the epicentre of Surrealism in Europe. Artists gravitated there from all over Europe to create an unparalleled avant-garde scene in which painters, sculptors, filmmakers, scientists, dancers and poets all collaborated,’ Mr Ellwood said.

‘The Centre Pompidou also has significant holdings of surrealist photography and cinema, by key practitioners such as Jacques-André Boiffard, Erwin Blumenfeld, Claude Cahun, Luis Buñuel, Maya Deren, Eli Lotar, Dora Maar and Man Ray.

In addition to the main exhibition, GoMA will also present an extensive film program exploring Surrealism within the history of cinema; an innovative Children’s Art Centre program integrating surrealist games; the popular Up Late series with weekly music performances; and talks, film screenings and other special events and public programs.

The Gallery will also publish the first English-language publication to profile the Centre Pompidou’s surrealist collection.

Image: Yves Tanguy
A quatre heures d'été, l'espoir ... (Four o’clock in summer, hope…) 1929