NEW YORK.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents "Surrealism: Desire Unbound", on view through May 12, 2002. A central theme of Surrealism, a major artistic movement of the 20th century, was desire in its many manifestations. The first major survey of Surrealism in more than 20 years, this exhibition will present the richness and diversity of this obsessive but very human and constant theme through more than 300 paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, photographs, and films. The selection ranges in date from the decade anticipating the first manifestations of Surrealism in 1924 to more recent years. Artists represented include Giorgio de Chirico, Joseph Cornell, Salvador Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Arshile Gorky, René Magritte, Man Ray, André Masson, Joan Miró, and Pablo Picasso. Many of the icons of the Surrealist dream will be displayed as well as important works by artists not yet widely known. The achievement of women associated with the Surrealists, sometimes overlooked in previous surveys, will be strongly represented by painters such as Leonora Carrington, Frida Kahlo, and Dorothea Tanning.