Surreality 101 | VEFA Gallery

April 5 — May 24, 2025

Surreality 101

Surrealism Group Show
Justo Amable Garrote Ramos
'Besame Mucho (Kiss Me a Lot)', 2023
Curated By Delia Cabral, co-curated by Dr. Joseph Anderson

Greg 'Craola' Simkins

John DeTemple

Bogdan Dumitrica

Justo Amable Garrote Ramos

Roberto Gonzalez

David Krovblit

Paul Roustan

Jim Sanders

David Schoffman

Vlasta Smola

Ángel León Valiente

Ralph Whitehead
Surrealism emerged in 1924 when French writer André Breton published his "Manifesto of Surrealism." This movement arose as a rejection of rationalism after the horrors of World War I. Seminal artists such as Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Max Ernst, Luis Buñuel, and Man Ray developed the themes that defined the movement: dreams, disparate images, the subconscious, and social/political commentary.

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Now, 101 years later, we invite you to revisit how the dreams of 1924 have manifested in our contemporary landscape and what new discourses have emerged. This exhibition creates a dialogue across time, connecting the revolutionary spirit of early Surrealism with the technological and social transformations of the 21st century. Through this conversation, we can discover both continuities and bear witness to how artists access and represent the realm beyond our conscious reality today, creating work that can transport us.

In his first Surrealist Manifesto, Breton defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"—the birth of a new way to express and communicate, bypassing conscious creative control and allowing unexpected juxtapositions to emerge directly from the unconscious mind, revealing an expanded reality. The etymology of the word comes from the French surréalisme, from sur- "beyond" + réalisme "reality."

In our current technology-driven era, new pathways to expression and modes of existence are now possible. AI image generation, digital manipulation, and immersive environments allow us to interface with technology. This can augment and expand our realities but also question, confuse, and even deceive our perceptions of reality.

Surreality 101 features a richly varied collection of contemporary artists from across the Americas and Europe whose work breathes new life into the surrealist ethos. We can see what dreams have come to pass and where the human psyche will take us next.
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