Beyond Surrealism: Establishing a Dialogue Throughout History

For over a century, Surrealism has been one of the leading forces in modern and contemporary art. Very few art movements have had the same impact, both on artists and on the general public, and have reached the same recognition. Nowadays, everyone knows the melting clocks by Salvador Dalí or René Magritte’s pipe. And there is no doubt that the public is still highly fascinated by this movement, its quirks and inventions, whether it is solace we look for in art, amusement, or an imaginary world where we can lose (or find) ourselves.

Several artists are still engaging with Surrealism today, drawing upon its lessons and techniques, themes, or jests. In this spirit, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen just launched an exhibition that aims to highlight the transformative influence of Surrealism and its grip on today’s creators by pairing six contemporary artists with works from its world-renowned and unique collection.

Each artist in the exhibition was asked to select works from the museum’s collection and use them as a starting point for a dialogue with their own work and practice. The result is a fascinating trip into what Surrealism is today and what it represents for contemporary art, what lessons we are still bringing forward, and how it still strikes our imagination.

About the Exhibition

Open until April 6th, 2026, Beyond Surrealism is hosted in the Depot of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, in Rotterdam. The exhibition features works by contemporary masters, some of which were specifically produced for the exhibition and are site-specific, and aims to create a dialogue with Surrealist works from the museum’s collection.

This visually striking exhibition is not only a tribute to Surrealism in its historical form, but a powerful tool to demonstrate how this movement is still relevant today, despite it being over 100 years since the publication of its Manifesto in 1924. As Saskia van Kampen-Prein, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, explains:

The exhibition is therefore a powerful experience that can teach visitors how to apply the lessons of Surrealism to our everyday lives, finding inspiration, amusement, and embracing the restorative power of imagination.

Six Artists and Their Take on Surrealism

Spanning installation, painting, performance, sound, and moving image, the artists featured in Beyond Surrealism revisit the movement’s core strategies—including dream logic, transformation, humor, and the disruption of rational meaning—through urgent contemporary lenses. Together, these practices extend Surrealism beyond historical reference, positioning it as a living method for navigating ecological, psychological, and social complexities today.

1. Laure Prouvost (France)

Laure Prouvost uses language as a powerful tool to spark imagination and challenge fixed meanings, opening a playful and poetic dialogue between word and image, much like a modern René Magritte. The artist plays with urgent themes such as nature and climate. For Beyond Surrealism, she presents an installation where “talking” plants and oversized fish reflect on their conditions and threats, building a surreal ecosystem where language, image, and ecology converge in unexpected ways.

2. Emma Talbot (United Kingdom)

Emma Talbot’s large silk panels are painted with vibrant patterns, flowing lines, and ghost-like figures. For the exhibition, the artist created Magical Garden, Everything in Transformation, inspired by Leonora Carrington’s painting Again, The Gemini Are in the Orchard (1947). Like Carrington, Talbot explores the power of magic in reshaping our relationship with reality. Her installation presents a garden in light and shadow, depicting the cycle of life and emphasizing our place within the ecological system.

3. Kerstin Brätsch (Germany)

In her series Para Psychics (2020–2022), Kerstin Brätsch moves beyond the traditional canvas and transforms predictions from palm readers and clairvoyants into semi-abstract paintings. Drawing upon the idea of spirit and inner consciousness, she confronts Francis Picabia’s Viens avec moi là-bas (1948) for its relation to consciousness, as well as Paysage avec nuages roses (1928) by Yves Tanguy. In doing so, she produces monumental, marbled works on paper, with their enigmatic titles and accompanying meditative soundscapes.

4. Monster Chetwynd (United Kingdom)

Monster Chetwynd created a large-scale walkable floor collage, echoing Max Ernst’s collage books, where visitors can wander and get absorbed in it. Using humour and absurdity to challenge conventional ideas about gender and social roles, Chetwynd mixes performance, set and costume design, sculpture, and collage to engage in dialogue with iconic Surrealist works such as Dalí’s Mae West Lips Sofa (1938) or the poetic leaflets known as Papillons (1924), once scattered through Paris by the Surrealists.

5. Tai Shani (United Kingdom)

In her work, Tai Shani explores the hallucinogenic effects of ergot, a fungus found on rye and grains and known as the origin of LSD. From this interest, she develops alternative worlds in which psychoactive substances play a central role. For Beyond Surrealism, she presents a new installation within her ongoing project The Neon Hieroglyph (since 2021): a nocturnal scene in which a ghost floats above an abstract wooden landscape. Shani draws inspiration from Unica Zürn’s Komposition (1955), whose figures are haunted by dreams and fantasies.

6. Raphaela Vogel (Germany)

Raphaela Vogel investigates how power operates, how deeply rooted it is, and the roles that culture and psychology play in shaping it. Her installations combine film, sound, sculpture, anatomical models, and painted animal hides into spatial collages. In My Appropriation of Her Holy Hollowness (2021–2025), she dismantles and re-examines traditional power structures, reflecting on dominant ideas about gender, humanity and animality, technology, and biology, while establishing a dialogue with Dalí’s Couple aux têtes pleines de nuages (1936) and Shirley Temple, le plus jeune monstre sacré du cinéma de son temps (1939).

Beyond Surrealism is on view at the Depot of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, Netherlands, until April 6, 2026.