Ten years
after the publication of the first Surrealist manifesto by André Breton, the
Surrealist Group in Czechoslovakia was founded on 21 March 1934. This quickly
became the second most prestigious group of its kind after the Paris group, and
soon afterwards, at the beginning of 1935, the Mánes Association of Fine
Artists organised the first exhibition of the Surrealist Group in
Czechoslovakia. Thanks to this exhibition André Breton himself came to visit
Prague, where the first ever International Bulletin of Surrealism was
subsequently published. Since that time, despite various historical reversals,
the friendship between the Prague and Paris groups has endured, with the Prague
group continuing in its activities also following the death of André Breton in
1966 and indeed up to the present day.
The book
and exhibition shall present this continuity of Czech Surrealism, which is
exceptional on an international scale, and will focus on the intergenerational
dialogues in the output of the individual artists.
At the same
time it will highlight the uniqueness of the Czech group, since the fact that a
large proportion of its activities were conducted illegally led to constant rumination
on the fundamental tenets of Surrealism, their re-evaluation, and the raising
of new questions. In the concluding section, the exhibition will show how the Surrealist
Group in the Czech Republic remains active.
