In The neverending story: part II, curated by Bob Colacello, the Vito Schnabel Gallery continues to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the movement launched in Paris in 1924, with the French poet and philosopher Andre Breton’s Manifesto of surrealism. “I believe in the future resolution of these two states,” wrote Breton, “dream and reality, which are seemingly so contradictory, into a kind of absolute reality, a surreality, if one may so speak.”

The exhibition includes works by members and associates of the original group, including Salvador Dali, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Francis Picabia, and Pablo Picasso, as well as works by such successors as Ai Weiwei, Francesco Clemente, David Salle, Kenny Scharf, and Jean-Michel Basquiat (in collaboration with Andy Warhol). Representing the new generation: Robert Nava, Ariana Papademetropoulos, Angel Otero, and Isabelle Albuquerque.

In the long history of art movements, Surrealism is the force that never dies. In fact, it existed before it was announced by Breton, in such strange prophetic works as Hieronymus Bosch’s early 16th Century The garden of earthly delights - and in El Greco, in Botticelli, in Henri Rousseau. Out of time, beyond place, a literary movement as well as artistic, politically engaged at times, art for art’s sake at others, Surrealism lives on.

This exhibition is an attempt to encompass that timeliness, that scope, and depth and range, and most importantly– a relevance as strong as it has ever been. Alongside a rare Picabia Transparency painting from 1929-34, for example, Ariana Papademetropoulos’ mysterious, dreamlike painting from 2024 carries on the high style and complex vision almost 100 years later.

As Bob Colacello recalls, “Andy Warhol liked to say, ‘It’s so abstract.’ I’d reply, ‘It’s so surreal.’”

The exhibition features works by Ai Weiwei (b. 1957), Isabelle Albuquerque (b. 1981), Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960 - 1988), Francesco Clemente (b. 1952), George Condo (b. 1957), Enzo Cucchi (b. 1949), Salvador Dalí (1904 - 1989), Giorgio de Chirico (1888 - 1978), Man Ray (1890 - 1976), Max Ernst (1891 - 1976), Robert Nava (b. 1985), Angel Otero (b. 1981), Ariana Papademetropoulos (b. 1990), Francis Picabia (1879 - 1953), Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973), Rene Ricard (1946 - 2014), David Salle (b. 1952), and Kenny Scharf (b. 1958), and Andy Warhol (1928 - 1987).