A headquarter for surrealists
Created in 1924 the surrealist group was made up of three poets, Paul Nougé, Camille Goemans and Marcel Lecomte, and asserted itself through a radical and more subtle criticism of cubists avant-gardists, constructivists or dadaists, whom Magritte represented among others in Belgium. In 1926 Magritte joined the group, together with E.L.T. Mesens (composer, poet and collagist), with Louis Scutenaire (poet) and with the musician André Souris; Marcel Mariën would join them in 1938. Together they produced lots of brochures, events, political tracts and collective exhibitions until the beginning of the fifties. Magritte's work developed partly whithin this group of writers, among whom he found support and friendship. It is to be noted that each of these would later publish on the painter's work and of its meaning.
To the formalism and esthetics researches of the time, which they considered inoffensive the Brussels surrealists opposed a fierce will to recreate the world on a new basis; this revolution, according to them, had to be carried by an infaillible attention to the real world, for this very world was to be subverted and disrupted drastically. Thus the importance of rerouting daily messages (adverts, grammar, playcards) which they trapped from inside whithout modifying their appearances.
This
"ongoing experience" (Paul Nougé) is recounted in a great deal in the museum through correspondance, group pictures, brochures ("Distances, "Marie", etc.). A specific place is also devoted to Mesens' and Mariën's collages, as well as to Delvaux', Jane Graverol's, Rachel Baes' works who are from different parts of Magritte's story.
