It is a treasure among treasures. At the National Library of France (BNF), rue de Richelieu (Paris 1is), a handful of manuscripts are kept separately, in a space called “the reserve”, where, among other things, medieval wonders are stored (The Gospel of the Sainte-Chapelle, The Great Hours of Anne of Brittany), oriental works, the original calligrams of Stéphane Mallarmé… And the most recent of all, dating from 1924, the Manifesto of Surrealism, by André Breton, a founding text of the avant-garde movement which revolutionized the plastic arts, cinema and literature.
On the occasion of its centenary, the movement is the subject of an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou (Paris 4e), from September 4 to January 13 2025, with an exceptional range of works, including the Manifest. An event in itself, since the manuscript, which the surrealists considered their tablets of the law, has only been shown to the public twice: at the Centre Pompidou, already, in 2002, and at the BNF, in 2021. Since it was “absolutely essential to present the original document”according to the co-curator of the exhibition, Marie Sarré, it was taken out of “the reserve”.
This Wednesday, August 21, at the BNF, the atmosphere is concentrated. Olivier Wagner, in charge of the “modern and contemporary manuscripts” collections within the institution, is at the controls. He counts one by one the twenty-one sheets of 23 centimeters by 36, on which, in fine writing, André Breton defines surrealism as a “pure psychic automatism by which one intends to express, either verbally, in writing, or in any other manner, the real functioning of thought.” Yes, the Manifest recommends action “in the absence of any control exercised by reason, outside of any aesthetic or moral concern”its packaging obeys precise rules. One by one, its fragments are packaged, installed in a wooden crate without signage, and transported in an anonymous truck to avoid theft.
“Amazing story”
This is because the text is one of the most important of the century. It unites a movement, explains Marie Sarrégives it a real existence. Louis Aragon, Max Ernst, Philippe Soupault, Paul Eluard and many others will come together around the principles laid down by André Breton. As will many visual artists from all over the world, as the exhibition at Beaubourg will show. Marie Sarré assures in particular that, “Very quickly, Breton’s text was translated into Japanese and Chinese.” The destiny of the movement will be exceptional, an artistic and human adventure, made of friendships, rivalries, hatreds and resentments. In September 1966, André Breton died and, three years later, Jean Schuster, his executor, published in The World a platform signing the death certificate of the movement. “Forty years. No avant-garde has lasted that long.”explains Marie Sarré.
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