Surrealism centenary exhibition inspires new generation

A showcase of Serbian surrealism, which was so successful its run was extended, has closed with an exhibition curated by the children and young people it inspired.

Aktivitet: 100 Years of Surrealism at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, which aimed to make art accessible to all, was curated by Essex’s Professor Sanja Bahun.

The exhibition closed with a Young Surrealists’ Day for the children and young people who had participated in associated workshops and events. With Professor Bahun, they curated their own exhibition within an exhibition, of works they had created themselves.

Akivitet marked 100 years since the publication of André Breton’s First Manifesto of Surrealism and celebrated the centenary of surrealism in Serbia and around the world.

At the heart of the exhibition was the Belgrade Surrealist Circle, a group of artists, writers, thinkers and activists who, in the 1920s and 1930s created a vast and diverse body of work. Their socialist desire to make art less elitist and more inclusive was central to Professor Bahun’s vision.

“The Belgrade Surrealist Circle was one of the earliest and most productive surrealist groups outside France. They were revolutionaries, in their aesthetics and their politics, and individual figures were hugely influential in the development of art and politics in the region, particularly after the end of the First World War and the foundation of socialist Yugoslavia when some of them held leading political positions,” explained Professor Bahun.

“The Serbian surrealists wanted to change our way of thinking about art and its role in society – to challenge preconceived notions of who is entitled to be an artist and what an art object is. To that aim they emancipated and included in their artistic practices children, people with mental health problems or physical health disabilities and, more generally, the population that would not be traditionally exposed to art.

“My primary aim was to bring visibility to this rich legacy and activate it for contemporary audiences – not as a historical phenomenon but as a type of social and artistic thinking through (sur)reality that is still alive today,” Professor Bahun added.

In line with the traditions of the group, the exhibition included children’s drawings alongside masterpieces and associated events engaged nurseries, schools, universities and organisations that support people with mental health challenges and artists with disabilities.

Professor Bahun led the curation team, which included Aleksandra Mirčić, Una Popović and Žaklina Ratković.

Reflecting on the name of the exhibition, Professor Bahun explained: “’Aktivitet’ is a philosophical and slightly poetic word in Serbo-Croatian which could be translated equally as ‘activity’, ‘activism’, and ‘action’. It represents the key conceptual contribution of the Belgrade Surrealist Circle to the global avant-garde heritage.

“One of its principles is that the creators and recipients of artworks should be drawn from the widest possible cross-section of society, with a particular responsibility to ensure the inclusion of marginalised groups or those less frequently exposed to art in the activation of artworks.”

“With that in mind, I wanted to challenge the impression that avant-garde art is hard to understand and meant only for the “elite” and I particularly wanted to appeal to and activate children and young people.”

Images courtesy of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade.