Surrealism: art, architecture, fashion and design

on Camila Guerra, Helena Barbour and Mirtes Marins

Dates: July 14, 21, 28, August 04, 11, and 18, 2026
Tuesdays
Time: from 19h to 21h30
Duration: 6 meetings
Audience: general interested parties
Investment: R$ 480,00 + fees

Online course
Live, via video conferencing platform
Recorded classes available for a limited time only
Includes certificate at the end
For Libras interpreter, request by email cursos@mam.org.br with 7 business days' notice.

This course understands Surrealism not only as a historical movement, but as an operational matrix that still structures ways of exhibiting, projecting, and experiencing art and culture. Starting from various Surrealist manifestations, from their origins to the present day, the theoretical and practical foundations, and the displacement strategies of relevant artists of the movement in the languages ​​of visual arts, architecture, fashion, and design will be discussed.
Over the course of six meetings, works in the field of surrealist practices will be presented, focusing on the reworking of some of their projects, so that those interested can explore the characteristics of this production.

Agenda

Lesson 1 – The sewing machine, the umbrella, and the operating table

• Origins, understandings, and developments of Surrealism from Dada in Europe, Latin America, and Brazil.
• Freud and Marx as influences
• Surrealism as part of modern primitivist approaches
• Some historical surrealist manifestations

Lesson 2 – Surrealist Architecture

• Aesthetic principles of Surrealism applied to architecture, such as spatial distortion and dreamlike atmosphere, present in the works of Salvador Dalí and René Magritte, are articulated with illogical and labyrinthine spaces inspired by Giovanni Battista Piranesi's Carceri.
• Key architects and works associated with the Surrealist imaginary include the dreamlike forms of Antoni Gaudí, the organic continuity of Friedrich Kiesler's Endless House, and the repercussions of this imaginary in architectural deconstructivism, visible in the geometric fragmentations and instabilities of Frank Gehry and Bernard Tschumi.
• Reflection in contemporary architecture appears in designs that explore fluid spatialities, unstable perspectives, and non-orthogonal geometries, as seen in the projects of Zaha Hadid, and in the formal approaches of Daniel Libeskind, Rem Koolhaas, and the Coop Himmelb(l)au collective, all marked by twists, fragmentations, and dreamlike atmospheres.

Lesson 3 – Fashion as a Surrealist Manifesto: Subversion and Collaboration

• The Body in Metamorphosis: Clothing as a support for the unconscious; the concept of "convulsive beauty" applied to fashion.
• The creative encounter between Elsa Schiaparelli, Salvador Dalí, and Jean Cocteau, with an analysis of some key pieces.
• The Displaced Object (Détournement): How to transform a shoe into a hat or gloves into claws.
• Fetish and Materiality: the use of textures (velvet, fur, cellophane) and the introduction of industrial elements (visible zippers) as aesthetic provocation.
• Surrealism in the New Millennium: the persistence of Surrealism in contemporary creators such as Alexander McQueen and John Galliano's historical reinterpretations for Dior.

Lesson 4 – Surrealist Design

• The illusory compositions of Piero Fornasetti and the theatrical forms of Carlo Mollino
• References for this imagery: the photographic irony of Man Ray, the use of unusual materials by Meret Oppenheim, and the hybrid atmospheres created by Dorothea Tanning.
• Metamorphosis, fetish, and humor
• The role of estrangement, playfulness, and functional subversion in surrealist design: détournement. The everyday as a dreamlike experience.
• Renewing the surrealist imagination in design: Maarten Baas, Studio Job, Patricia Urquiola, and the experiments of Front Design. In Brazil: Fernando and Humberto Campana and the digital investigations of Guto Requena.

Lesson 5 – The exhibition as a work of art: scenography and immersion

• Breaking with the Traditional Gallery: the exhibition as a total experience (Gesamtkunstwerk)
• International Exhibition of Surrealism (1938): general aspects and reception
• The Surrealist Street: public space as a place for the revelation of the unconscious.
• The role of the spectator as a participant in the work and "Mile of String" (1942)
• Contemporary curatorial legacy: how current exhibition design (in fashion and art museums) inherits surrealist strategies of immersion, sound, and dramatic lighting.

Lesson 6 – Why Surrealism?

• Based on the content presented throughout the course, the meeting will promote a roadmap of surrealist practices in the current context of art, architecture, fashion, design, and other languages, to verify the persistence of these practices (cinema, games, audiovisual, among others) and the recurrence of operations that characterized historical surrealism.

MAM friend There's a 20% discount. Be part!
Students, teachers and retirees have a 10% discount
Doubts:
cursos@mam.org.br
WhatsApp: 11 99774 3987

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credits

Image: Alberto da Veiga Guignard, untitled, 1949. Collection of the Museum of Modern Art, São Paulo. Photo: Ding Musa.