Curator Matthew Affron said Breton did not invent surrealism. Rather, he was the first to articulate it as a revolutionary act.

“Breton codified a philosophy of life, a way of living, a way of being,” Affron said. “It’s about using all sorts of methods rooted in the history of poetry, in the history of art, in the influence from Freud’s psychoanalysis, in radical politics – all coming together in the manifesto as a statement about changing the way you see the world.”

“What surrealism wanted, fundamentally, was a revolution in consciousness,” he said.

At its core, “Dreamworld” is a traveling exhibition that has been to Belgium, France, Spain and Germany. Its fifth and final stop is in Philadelphia.

The show is different in each city where it lands. Every museum has curated it individually with different works. About 35% of the Philadelphia Art Museum’s iteration of the exhibition comes from its own collection.

Affron said the PAM’s collection is particularly strong in surrealist art, thanks in part to major donations in the 1950s of avant-garde works from donors Walter and Louise Arensberg and Albert Gallatin.

“This exhibition is an opportunity to combine works that people who know our museum well will recognize, with tremendous loans from institutions and private lenders in Europe and North and South America,” he said, “telling the story of surrealism in a new way.”