In 1924, just a few years after the end of W.W. I, André Breton published his first Surrealist Manifesto. It set the agenda for a movement that would plumb the vast realm of the unconscious. Sounding a different note was the Surrealist interest in myth and the occult, a sort of hocus pocus that left postwar negativity in its wake. Studies over the last 20 years have brought into higher relief the Surrealist interest in magic, and the movement’s view of the artist as alchemist. Dalí, Delvaux, Ernst, Magritte, Seligmann, and more—they’re all here. The show begins with Giorgio de Chirico’s “metaphysical paintings,” made 10 years before Breton produced his manifesto. —E.C.

Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity
Peggy Guggenheim Collection
Dorsoduro, 701-704, 30123 Venezia VE, Italy
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