The Surrealists didn’t see books simply as containers for words. They experimented with the form itself, producing manifestos cast in polished metal, volumes bound with shards of glass, and love poems paired with solarized photographs. Drawing largely from a major gift from the Helen and Sam Zell Collection, MoMA presents the first major exhibition devoted to the Surrealist book as an art form. The show brings together rare artists’ books, maquettes, sketchbooks, collages, and sculptural bindings by figures including André Breton, Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Claude Cahun, Toyen, and Unica Zürn. As the Surrealists put it, “books are doors.” —Elena Clavarino