It was December 1, 1924 when in Paris the poet André Breton published his collection of prose "Poisson Soluble", the introduction of which would become the First Manifesto of Surrealism, officially inaugurating the most dreamlike of the avant-gardes of the 20th century. The Surrealists sought to explore the human psyche beyond the limits imposed by reason, to expand reality beyond its physical boundaries, to tap into a fuller dimension of existence which they defined as surreality.

A vision - the one common to all surrealist manifestations - which strongly criticizes conscious rationality, frees the imaginative potential of the unconscious to achieve a cognitive state of "sur-reality", in which wakefulness and dream are both present and are reconciled in a harmonious and profound way, often creating clear and real images but juxtaposing them with each other without any logical connection. In addition to the liberation of the individual, for which they mainly referred to the ideas of Freudian psychoanalysis, the Surrealists also pursued the ideal of a liberation of society in a political sense, taking sides on progressive and anti-colonialist positions.

It is clear then how Surrealism was not just a style, an artistic movement, but rather an attitude, an alternative way of being and conceiving the world, a radically new way of thinking that transformed the lives of their members.

It is on this fundamental concept that the multiple themes of the new exhibition that Mudec opens on March 22 in Milan develop “Dalí, Magritte, Man Ray and Surrealism. Masterpieces from the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum.”, presenting 180 works, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, documents, artifacts, all from the collection of the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum, one of the most important museums in the Netherlands, in dialogue with some works from the Collection Permanent of the Museum of Cultures.