"Changing life" : such was the watchword chosen right after the

First World War by a small group of artists, Max Ernst, Hans Arp,

André Masson, Louis Aragon and Paul Éluard with André Breton

as leader.

The Surrealist movement, rather than just an insurrection

against the ruling order, sought to be an authentic revolution,

where phantasms, dreams and ravings would be acknowledged

and taken into consideration.

Art in every form became the privileged means of expression of

an unbridled imagination; automatic writing, incongruous

combinations, erotic compositions opened the doors onto an

enigmatic universe that lent itself to countless interpretations.

Madness: "It is not the fear of madness that will force us

to leave the flag of imagination at half mast."

"It is living and ceasing to live that are imaginary solutions.

Existence is elsewhere."

(Extract from The First Manifesto of Surrealism , 1924)