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Surrealism and Photography

―BEAUTY CONVULSED―

Mar. 15—May. 6, 2008

• Mar. 15—May. 6, 2008
• Closed Monday (Tuesday if Monday is a national holiday)
• Admission：Adults ￥700（560）／College Students ￥600（480）／High School and Junior Hight School Students, Over 65 ￥500（400）

The largest art movement of the twentieth century, Surrealism, began with the ‘Surrealism Manifesto’ that was drawn up by Andre Breton and published in ‘La Révolution Surréaliste’ in 1924. After its birth in Paris, it quickly developed to produce a diverse world of expression, spreading to the United Kingdom, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and other European countries, while its influence was also felt in the U.S.A. and Mexico. Japan was no exception to this trend and from the prewar years until the fifties, it was a prominent theme in every branch of avant-garde photography from pure visual expressions to advertising or fashion.

 

Bill Brandt, East Sussex Coast, 1930
Man Ray, Séanse de Rêve éveille, 1924

Surrealism achieved great popularity, particularly through painting, but in this exhibition we will look at its relationship with photography, making new approaches to the subject from a variety of angles. Recent years have seen numerous large-scale exhibitions on the subject of Surrealism being held around the world, but in our forthcoming exhibition we will look at its entire range of expression to ask the basic question of ‘What is Surrealism?’, while simultaneously questioning ‘What is photography?’ and introducing the unique visual world produced by this twentieth-century artistic revolution through a large variety of works. (Proposed number of works: approx. 200)

 

UMBO,Slippers, 1928-29
Jean Eugene Auguste Atget, Merry-go-round, 1923