“The most radical stance in the fight against the order of things did not emerge in the twenty-year period between the two wars, or from communism, but from an ideological and artistic movement; surrealism.” This is how Luigi Salvatorelli, a famous Italian historian and journalist, describes one of the most revolutionary movements of the 20th century.

From 22 March to 30 July 2023, the MUDEC in Milan will be hosting 180 paintings, sculptures, drawings and other items from the collection of the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum of Rotterdam, which will dialogue with the other works in the permanent collection. Dreams and reality, the psyche, love and desire, a new expression of beauty that drew in all the visual arts, as well as cinema, and even literature. A fascination for the bizarre, the unusual and the irrational.

Each section of the exhibition is introduced by a particular sculpture or ironic object, which dialogues with the visitor and evokes the specific theme of the section. There are many famous names among the numerous artists in the exhibition, such as René Magritte, who began his artistic career by first approaching cubism and then futurism, before embracing surrealism, the art form with which he found fame. Magritte portrayed reality without distorting it, creating undefined mystery and contemplating real forms that took shape in real settings, while at the same time maintaining dream-like aspects. However, the most publicly celebrated surrealist artist is Salvador Dalí, whose works are also in the exhibition, and who defined himself thus: “I am surrealism”.

An artistic movement that was, first and foremost, a philosophical manifesto, a poetic idea, an enchanting view of an alternative, new and surreal reality.