29 November 2021
Surrealists from Boijmans Collection on View Now in the Seoul Arts Center
On 27 November 2021 the exhibition ‘A Surreal Shock: Masterpieces from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’ opened in the Seoul Arts Center. More than 180 works from the world-famous Surrealism collection are being shown in South Korea for the first time.
Wellington was the first venue of the international tour and Seoul is the second. The way the works are being presented has been tailored to this new group of visitors. The exhibition spaces have been painted using traditional Korean colour combinations of intense orange, green, purple, blue and red. The different themes relating to Surrealist and Dadaist thinking have each been given their own colour palette. Needless to say, the focus is mainly on Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dalí and René Magritte, but female artists such as Unica Zürn and Leonora Carrington are also in the spotlight, as is the work of Man Ray and Hans Bellmer.
The exhibition was staged in cooperation with the Korean organizer Culture & I Leaders and is being supported by the Dutch embassy, which is celebrating sixty years of bilateral relations between the Netherlands and South Korea. ‘A Surreal Shock’ runs until 6 March 2022. After that the exhibition travels to Mexico.
On a World Tour
Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, New Zealand was the first stop on the world tour of the Surrealists. The exhibition 'Surrealist Art: Masterpieces from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen' was staged in Te Papa until 31 October. Despite COVID 19 measures, some 75,000 visitors came to the museum in Wellington. This means that 1 out of every 65 people living in the country came to see our artworks. Their responses were extremely positive. Sixty percent gave the exhibition 9 or 10 out of 10.
Experience the Surrealist Art exhibition in Wellington from your armchair
A map of the world has been made especially for the travelling exhibitions, showing you where you can immerse yourself in our foreign shows. You can still see this special show thanks to an interactive 360° tour that we produced with assistance from Te Papa. This 360° tour enables you to ‘walk and move' through the different exhibition spaces. There is also the option to select artworks to view in detail, with in-depth audio and text. And above all make sure you watch the video with curators Lizzie Bisley (Te Papa) and Els Hoek (Boijmans). They explain everything about the exhibition and Surrealism.
More about Boijmans Abroad