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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Surrealist Art: Masterpieces from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen

June 12 – Oct 31, 2021
55 Cable Street, Te Aro, Wellington 6011, New Zealand

Surrealism took flight in Paris in 1924, when André Breton argued that intellectual movements grounded in rationalism had closed down the unconscious. A group of artists embraced Breton’s manifesto and the results were playful, provocative, and shocking. Salvador Dalí’s painted ants and melting clocks, his sculpture Woman Aflame, became sensations. Marcel Duchamp’s readymades were the talk of the town. And René Magritte’s Son of a Man combined realism and dream to mesmerizing effect. In a celebration of Surrealism, this exhibition showcases 180 works by Dalí, Duchamp, Magritte, Leonora Carrington, Man Ray, and many more. Viewers who choose to do so can record their dreams in the museum archive. —E.C.

René Magritte, “The House of Glass,” 1939 © René Magritte/ADAGP. Copyright Agency, 2021. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Photo: Studio Tromp.