Intellectuals and anarchists are susceptible to the writings of the Marquis de Sade, and so were the Surrealists. Guillaume Apollinaire, who helped to repopularize the work of de Sade in the early 20th century, called him “the freest spirit that has ever existed,” and it was freedom of imagination, and instinct, that was at the heart of Surrealism. In 1933, André Breton, a cofounder of the Surrealist movement, introduced the artist Alberto Giacometti, then in his early 30s, to the work of de Sade. The exhibition “Cruel Objects of Desire” reveals Giacometti’s explorations into eros unbound by convention and complicated by cruelty. —L.J.