Surrealism is not a style – but a state of mind. It aims to subvert reality. To find the uncanny in the everyday. To tap into our unconscious desires and bring dreams to life. And for many artists around the world, it has been a way to challenge authority and imagine a new world.
Previous stories of surrealism have focused on Paris in the 1920s. Based on extensive research, this exhibition will reach across the world and over 50 years. It will show how artists around the world have been inspired and united by surrealism – from centres as diverse as Buenos Aires, Cairo, Lisbon, Mexico City, Prague, Seoul, and Tokyo.
Surrealism Beyond Borders is presented in the Eyal Ofer Galleries.
Research supported by Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational in partnership with Hyundai Motor.
Exhibition organised by Tate Modern and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Toshiko Okanoue The Call 1953 Wilson Centre for Photography © Toshiko Okanoue, Courtesy of The Third Gallery Aya
Ramses Younan Untitled 1939 Sheikh Hassan M. A. Al-Thani © Estate of Ramses Younan
Helen Lundeberg Plant and Animal Analogies 1933–34 The Buck Collection at the UCI Institute and Museum for California Art (California, US)
Salvador Dalí
Lobster Telephone (1938)
Tate
© Salvador Dali, Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation/DACS, London 2025
Kaveh Golestan Untitled, from Az Div o Dad series © Kaveh Golestan Estate, Courtesy Archaeology of the Final Decade
