Exhibition: Marvelous Utopia

From July 6 to September 7, 2024, the Paris Surrealist Group is organizing the XNUMXth International Surrealism Exhibition in Saint-Cirq-Lapopie in partnership with the association La Rose Impossible, manager of the International Center for Surrealism and Global Citizenship. This exhibition, entitled Merveilleuse utopia, will be held in the Maisons André Breton and Émile Joseph-Rignault. This event also coincides with the celebration of 10 years of the Maison André Breton project, led by the Association of La Rose Impossible and the town hall of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie. Although part of the centenary of the publication of the Manifesto of Surrealism, the exhibition is in no way commemorative, but is designed to mark the persistence of surrealism as a living movement in its continuity after the death of Breton in 1966, and this in the spirit of the exhibitions of 1938, 1947, 1959, 1965 and 1976. To this end, the majority of the space will be devoted to contemporary works by European artists and groups (France, Spain, Italy, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Slovakia, United Kingdom...) and American (United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina...). A place will be made for works of raw or singular art that their imaginative power places on the margins of surrealism.

Why Wonderful Utopia? To recall the revolutionary principles of surrealism – transforming the world, changing life, remaking human understanding from scratch (A. Breton) – and the central place it gives to the emancipatory powers of the imagination. This is in opposition to the idea that surrealism is an aesthetic or a simple artistic movement.

The island is traditionally the privileged place of utopia, the exhibition is designed as a journey through five islands forming a utopian archipelago:
The island of dreams
The island of revolt
The island of metamorphoses
The island of love
The island of abundance

The cross-cutting themes will be the passionate attraction according to Charles Fourier (1772-1837) and the upside-down world of the land of plenty. Beyond the original utopia of Thomas More (1516) and all those conceived in his wake, surrealism today aims to re-enchant utopia as a place of both individual and collective happiness.