Recently, a unique exhibition, Surrealism Beyond Borders, opened at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, thence to the Tate in London. Unique, but why? Scholarship on surrealism has entered an expansive phase with new books and research articles. And while this exhibition and catalog chart the evolution of Surrealism from its beginnings to the late 1970s, excluding several groups that developed then or thereafter—whether defunct or active now—the taxonomy that the curators devised speaks to contemporary issues: the transnational character of the movement and how groups, specific to time and place, sustained themselves; the difficulties of exile, displacement and translation; the gendered portrayal of identity, sexuality and love; the inspiration drawn from indigenous cultures and the ambivalence of appropriation; contesting racism, colonialism and imperialism; violence and revolution; the influence of religion and myth in the twentieth century; the use of media, and more.
The curators also have another purpose. By exploiting...