Your report (Surreal: art’s weirdest worldview bounces back a century after its birth, 7 March) quotes Thomas Bompard of Sotheby’s saying: “In today’s world – more and more complex, contradictory, multipolar – surrealism resonates more because it embraces all the contradictions instead of resolving them.”
However, it is worth pointing out that surrealism is a contemporary, living and relevant movement of groups and individuals around the world, and really should not be consigned to being seen through the rear-view mirror. With surrealists in Leeds, London, Madrid, Paris, Stockholm, Canada, the US, Brazil, Portugal, the Netherlands, Egypt and, yes, here in Wales, our ludic activities are underpinned by the surrealist ideas of mad love, revolt, desire, anti-clericalism, the marvellous, the uncanny, freedom, objective chance, poetry, dreams, dérive, black humour and the unconscious, and constitute a much needed flash of lightning in these dark times.
As we approach the centenary of André Breton’s First Manifesto of Surrealism, it is timely to be reminded that we surrealists remain “specialists in revolt” who continue to oppose so-called common sense, capitalist ideology, religious delusions and the miserabilism of everyday life, with total revolt and an unfettered imagination.
John Richardson
Clyro, Powys
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