The exhibition aims to present Surrealism as a movement deeply engaged with society and politics, drawing on the perspectives of members such as Max Ernst, Hans Arp and André Masson. From its beginnings in the 1920s, Surrealism was confronted with numerous political movements that challenged its ideals of equality and freedom. The Surrealists thus condemned the various European colonial projects, opposed fascism, fought in the Spanish Civil War, and took part in the Resistance during the Second World War. Branded as “degenerate” by the Nazis, they were subjected to persecution and internment. Some managed to flee Europe to escape extermination, while others perished in camps or on the battlefield.

The Surrealists advocated absolute freedom, seeking to extend it to every sphere of society. For them, emancipation meant freeing oneself from all imperatives imposed by the state, the nation, the Church and the bourgeoisie. This political and artistic freedom can be linked to numerous movements that emerged from Surrealism. Thus, the events of May 1968, anti-totalitarian movements in Eastern Europe, and the struggles for Black rights and liberation in the United States fuelled the engaged practice of many artists inspired by the Surrealists’ convictions. This political denunciation is particularly evident in Hervé Télémaque’s work One of the 36 000 Marines over our Antilles — lent by the Fondation Gandur pour l’Art for this exhibition — which denounces the landing of US Marines in the Dominican Republic on 28 April 1965.