Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity Peggy Guggenheim Collection

Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity is a joint exhibition between the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the Museum Barberini. It's the first large-scale international loan exhibition that looks at Surrealism's interest in magic and the occult.

The Venetian venue will showcase some 60 works from over 40 international museums and private collections. It offers a rich... Show more

Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity is a joint exhibition between the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the Museum Barberini. It's the first large-scale international loan exhibition that looks at Surrealism's interest in magic and the occult.

The Venetian venue will showcase some 60 works from over 40 international museums and private collections. It offers a rich overview of the entire development of the Surrealist movement, exploring the myriad ways in which magic and the occult informed its artistic trajectory. From the “metaphysical painting” of Giorgio de Chirico around 1915, through Max Ernst's iconic painting Attirement of the Bride (1940), to the occult imagery that underpinned the late works of Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo.

In their works, Surrealist artists frequently drew on occult symbolism and cultivated the traditional image of the artist's persona as a magician, seer, and alchemist, looking to magic as a poetic and deeply philosophical discourse, related to individual self-empowerment.