Adrien Dax et l'activité surréaliste à Toulouse

The Surrealist movement spread internationally and remains active in several countries – Czech Republic, USA, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands. In France, although it was centered on Paris, some provincial towns are associated with it, particularly Nantes, Strasbourg, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, where a group inspired by the Surrealists formed in the thirties.

Named Le Trapèze volant (The Flying Trapeze), it brought together figures such as the future "disalienist psychiatrist" Lucien Bonnafé (1912-2003), poet Gaston Massat (1909-1966), photographer Jacques Matassaro (1916- 2015), future Resistance activist Élise Lazes (1908-1989) and militant communist poet Jean Marcenac (1913-1984). They also came to be known as the Tortoni group, for the Italian café on Place du Capitole where they met, which is now a MacDonald’s. They set up a cine-club, organized exhibitions, notably of work by psychiatric patients, met André Breton and the Parisian Surrealists, and carried out joint actions with radical progressives. During the interwar years, the group of friends in Toulouse were in lockstep with the group in Paris.

After the Liberation, the baton passed to newcomers, foremost of whom was Adrien Dax (1913-1979), who had known the Tortoni group and, in 1948, joined the Surrealist group that had reformed around André Breton. His principal contribution stemmed from the virtuosity of his automatic drawings and his decalcomanias, in which outcome always precedes intention, revealing latent images or fragmented spaces. Dax was a loyal and generous partner of the Surrealist group, signing all its pamphlets, participating in all its exhibitions and their scenography, and contributing to its reviews, research and debates.

Other celebrated figures of the period include Raymond Borde (1920- 2004) and Guy Cabanel. The former founded the Toulouse Cinemathèque in 1964 and made several surrealism-inspired films. He also penned a celebrated pamphlet, L’Extricable (1963), that is halfway between Surrealism and Situationism. The latter, born in 1926, still active in Toulouse, is probably the greatest post-war Surrealist poet. Like Adrien Dax and Raymond Borde, he signed Le Manifeste des 121, a declaration of the right to insubordination during the Algerian War, which the Surrealists played an active part in writing. Already acclaimed by André Breton in 1958 for À l’animal noir, his prolific body of work invents afresh Surrealist lyricism.

The exhibition "chronicles" Surrealist activity in Toulouse through a vast selection of works and documents. It will also feature works by Mireille Cangardel, who continues to pursue her exploration of oneirism in painting.