Dalí, in Florida

Since my last visit at Le Centre Pompidou to see Dalí, I looked for an opportunity to visit the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, FL. A great number of paintings from the artist's surrealist period were on loan from the American museum contributing to the major retrospective in Paris..
Why the location on the West Coast of Florida? The collection from Reynolds and Eleanore Morse, friends of  Dalí, was initially in Ohio and was relocated to St Petersburg through the initiative of a local attorney combined with the financial support of the city itself and the state of Florida. The building housing the collection was conceived by the architect Yann Weymouth of HOK and opened in 2011. The minimalist cube shape is softened by glass bubbles bringing to life an otherwise austere construction built to withstand category 5 hurricanes due to its location along the Tampa bay. Surrounded by gardens, looking at the sea, the site could not be more auspicious. Matching the outside, the white atrium is elegant with its helical staircase, a reference to Dalí's interest with spirals and the structure of DNA.

The exhibition located on the third floor presents the collection in chronological order. After a brief introduction illustrated by the first piece collected by the Morses's family Daddy Long Leg of the Evening- Hope!, 1940, it goes on with early paintings from Spain, the works hanging along the walls and rows of parallel wooden partitions. Self-portraits, landscapes, still lifes, portraits, the succession of paintings is a tribute to the large collection. In an attempt to  interrupt the otherwise monotonous display, titles like "Early Works", "Anti-Art", "Surrealism" in large letters introduce different sections of the exhibition. The Surrealist period is filling most of the remnant of the gallery with a succession of smaller works, but characteristic with their symbols, insects, ostrich eggs, Gala... and the exhibition ends with "salons", wider spaces illuminated by skylights, allowing larger canvasses of the late works. At the time of my visit, Santiago El Grande, 1957, was temporarily on loan from the Beaverbrook Art Gallery in New Brunswick, Canada. Dalí's experiments with different styles and media including sand, gravel like Miró, are well represented although the collection appears short of works from his cubist period which occupied a whole section of the exhibition at Le Centre Pompidou.

The second wing of gallery space on the third floor offered a temporary exhibition titled The Royal Inheritance, paintings bequeathed by the artist to the Kingdom of Spain, on loan from the Museo Reina Sofía in exchange for the works provided for the exposition Dalí which traveled from Paris to Madrid in April. Early nudes from the 1918-1924 period, Portrait of Gala with Turban,1939, a copy of Grand Masters, or Gala from 1965, a hazy symbolic portrait, more still lifes, the show felt like an addendum to the permanent collection. It included also a painting from 1928, an attempt to abstract during Dalí's "Anti-Art" period, a few not so well-known late works from the 80's showing Dalí's interest in science, physics, mathematics or optics (with a small stereoscopic painting inspired by Velázquez, Las Meninas,1976, where two images fuse in one if looking from a distance) and three sculptures, New Amsterdam, 1974, the famous Venus de Milo with Drawers, 1964, and the Lobster Telephone from 1936 randomly placed in the gallery.  The pamphlet prepared at the occasion of the exhibition saved the show with its brief history of the works pointing out their significance in the context of the artist's career.
The visit included a fifteen minutes movie and the unavoidable gift shop on the first floor but missed mentioning Dalí's outlandish views, his political interventions, his legacy, not only as a painter, but a provocateur, his impact on pop art and more...  but if one is interested in his surrealist period and his early works, this is the place and at the risk of sounding like a travel writer, I recommend a visit to the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, FL!


no photographs allowed in the galleries
photographs by the author:
details of the helical staircase, Dali Museum
"La Vache Spectrale", Salvador Dali, 1928, Centre Pompidou, Paris
"Architecture surrealiste", Salvador Dali, 1932, Kunstmuseum, Bern

Dali, Thirty Years Later

A few weeks have passed since my visit at the Centre Pompidou in Paris to see the exhibition Dalí, a short title for a major retrospective: one hundred and twenty paintings, sculptures, videos, drawings, surrealist objects, even a kitschy Mae West installation where people can take photographs of themselves. I was in the crowd thirty years ago for the exhibition Salvador Dalí: Retrospective 1920-1980 and the artist was present. Dali would love it, the crowd is at the rendez-vous, the interest for his work does not abate.

I calculated a minimum of  ten minutes per painting, twenty hours...! The works are organized into seven sections: "The Ultralocal and the Universal", "From the Residencia de estudiantes to the Paths of Surrealism", "Surrealism and the Paranoiac-Critical Method", "Myths and History", "Theatricality", "Science, Mysticism and Theory", "Self-Reference and Great Machines". I chose my own path along the cubist, then surrealist paintings on each side of the large space occupied by glass cases full of surrealist objects, prints, drawings in the middle. There is a feeling of exhilaration when looking at the "real thing" like The Persistance of Memory, 1931, The Temptation of St Anthony, 1946, William Tell, 1940 or The Great Masturbator 1929. What I find most interesting is to discover less known paintings, some loaned by the Dali Museum in Saint-Petersburg, Florida. A flavor of  de Chirico, Miró, Tanguy... Dalí has been accused of plagiarism, ultimately he is Surrealism (as he claimed) and this is my preferred period.
An area was dedicated to the works inspired by Millet's Angelus, including Dalí's Angelus, 1932, The Architectural Angelus of Millet, 1933 , Gala's Angelus, 1935 .The original  work from Jean-François Millet lost in a corner appeared small compared to the giant, brightly colored spawns from Dalí.
Few sculptures were displayed, the Venus de Milo with Drawers, 1936/1964 was among them. To find more sculptures, a trip to Espace Dali in Montmartre is in order.
To accommodate the flow of visitors the space was left opened with no partitions between sections, only posters at strategic points and no area to rest for the tired visitor. Young children looking at the paintings with fresh eyes were asking a lot of questions...
The videos were a reminder of Dali's involvement with the movie industry. Dalí has been chastised for his political views and the exhibition brought up the subject with paintings like Partial Hallucinations.Six Images of Lenin on a Grand Piano, 1931, or Spain, 1938, Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War, 1936, Hitler masturbating, etc... His interest in science and also religion was also approached but the presentation of this later period was superficial and could not match the exhaustive exhibition "Dali the Late Work" which took place at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta in 2010, including his works  with a Pop art's flavor.
The exhibition started with several self-portraits,  Self-portrait with the Neck of Raphael, 1920-1921 showing a young Dalí, defiant, imitating Old Masters like Leonardo da Vinci for his landscapes and a Cubist Self-Portrait 1923. His Self-Portrait 1972, closes the exhibition. The long neck from Raphael is still present, the photomontage of  "Mao Marylin" created by Philippe Halsman updates his image with new icons.

Preoccupied with universal themes, death, time, birth, love, sexuality, war, science, his works are timeless.  Dali has been criticized, praised, vilified, adored and each exhibition generates new books and new reviews. It sounds like cliché with a dalinian vocabulary: exhibitionism, Freudian, contradiction, provocation , eroticism, genius, madman, hallucinations, paranoiac, psychoanalytical...

Another memorable exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, another memorable retrospective of Dalí's work to fulfill one of his wishes: art accessible to everyone.

photographs by the author

"Venus and a Sailor", 1925
""Self-Portrait", 1940-41
"The Spectral Cow", 1928 

recommended reading: "Dali The Paintings" from Robert Descharnes- Gilles Neret  (Taschen)

Dali: The Paintings

My latest reading is heavy. Before my visit to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, which latest temporary exhibition features Dali, I started to read the book produced by Robert Descharnes and Gilles Neret. "Dali: The Paintings."

Composed of two volumes, Part I (1904 till 1946) and Part II ( 1946 till 1989), it includes 1648 illustrations and tells the great story of Dali. It contains extensive quotes from Dali's "Secret Life". The book is full of anecdotes which allow us to understand the complex human being and his conflicts.
The reporting of everyday events, like the story of his inspiration for the "Soft Watches" (the idea struck Dali one evening after eating camembert for dinner), never becomes mundane. We learn about Dali's anxieties, including his difficult relationships with women. His first meeting with Gala, who became is wife, is touching, and like any love story is unique. A detailed account of Dali's life including his relationship with his father, his friends, his financial difficulties and more, helps the reader understand the complexity of the man and the artist who was often called a genius and often misunderstood (he enjoyed both).
The reader can follow the maturation of the artist through his different periods, presented in the context of the art movements of the time with the history of his life in the background.
The book is also an extensive compilation (not a catalogue raisonne) of the artist's works with enlightening comments from the authors.

Some of the quotes from Dali's Secret Life :

" As a child I adored that noble prestige of old people, and I would have given all my body to become like them, to grow old immediately! I was the anti-Faust. Wretched was he who, having acquired the supreme science of old age, sold his soul to unwrinkle his brow and recapture the unconscious youth of his flesh! Let the labyrinth of wrinkles be furrowed in my brow with the red-hot iron of my own life, let my hair whiten and my step become vacillating, on the condition that I can save the intelligence of my soul."

"One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams."

And many more...

Dali was looking for eternity...his work is timeless.

"Academic Surrealist or Surrealist Academician"

The High Museum of Art in Atlanta presents a well publicized exhibition titled: "Dali: the Late Work.". On display are the works produced during four decades (1940's till the 1980's) by the prolific artist. It could be called his post-Surrealist period ( he was banned from the Surrealist movement in 1934).

The first room is an introduction with photographs from Philippe Halsman showing the artist in various poses. The photographs from the series "The Cosmic Dali" are well-known with "Dali Atomicus" (1948), "Mid Summer Night's Mare" (1949) among others, a total of fifteen photographs to wet our appetite.

The second room is occupied by ten small paintings executed between 1930 and 1940, at a time when Dali was part of the Surrealist movement. Theses paintings represent for me the Dali I know the best. I came to see the late works.

Finally, the visitor reaches the subject of the exhibition. The gigantic canvasses, including "Madonna of Port Lligat" 1950, "Santiago El Grande" 1957, "Christ of St John of the Cross" 1951, "Assumpta Corpucularis Lapilazulina" 1952 have not been displayed in the United States since the 50s. A mixture of Surrealism and Classicism, they define the religious period of the artist. Dali mixes his own symbols (horns from rhinoceros, eggs from ostriches) and religious symbols. Gala, his wife becomes the virgin Mary. Pope Pius XII encouraged Dali to pursue his search for religion, the painter became an iconoclast in the process.

The technique of the artist is flawless. For the "Christ of St John of the Cross" , he uses chiaroscuro. The special angle looking at Christ from above makes the viewer feel like being God looking at the crucified subject who himself is looking down to the fishermen, representing us, the viewers.

The visit continues with Dali's preoccupations: genetic, atom, the search for eternity are the subjects of the works, lithogaphs, prints, paintings. He mixes art, science and some charlatanism.




A small room is dedicated to Dali, the illustrator: "Don Quixote", "Ten recipes for Immortality", "The divine Comedy" . These lithographs are well known, a reminder of the quality of the artist. The prints are technical masterpieces.

Random portraits of famous personages can be seen in a corner, also, in the same area, a few jewels and Dali's game of chess, his experimentation with holography, two videos for tired visitors, more photographs from Halsman. This section of the exhition does not flow well. It is just "put together".


Dali is also the precursor of Pop art. "Portrait of my Dead Brother" 1963, "Fifty Abstract Paintings" 1963, "The Sistine Madonna" 1958 are crammed with among other works the sculpture titled: "White Eagle" 1974. Unfortunately, the space is very crowded, and this visual experience is hampered by the size of the room.

And then, it is over. The special Dali store is right there, one can buy fake mustaches, cups with Dali's portrait, jewels...

As a whole I was deceived by the exhibition...not by Dali. The rarely seen works deserved a better setting. The High Museum of Art is not short of space and could have used three times the square footage for this exhibition to give it its full impact. It would also allow a better flow of the crowd.

Dali, Don Quixotte

photographs are reproductions from the book: " Dali: The Paintings" from Robert Descharmes and Gilles Neret, made by the author

1. "St. James of Compostela", 1957
2. "Landscape at Port Lligat", 1950
3. illustration for "pages choisies de Don Quichotte de la Manche" by Joseph Foret, 1957

Listen to Jazz and look at paintings

Music from Ted Nash and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra inspired by paintings: "Portrait in Seven Shades".

The musician selected seven painters including Monet, Dali, Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh, Chagall and Pollock. Seven videos were made at the MOMA, they can be viewed on YouTube.

No comments, just listen...and look.

On the beaten paths in Montmartre

Today I chose to visit l'Espace Dali , near Place du Tertre in Montmartre... just because it is Dali. It is described on numerous websites.

The temporary exhibition is presenting Gala's jewels (which were created to be unwearable). It appears to be a way to promote Dali's jewels and ... more business. Maybe the tourists are not buying copies of lithographs anymore and the melted clocks are "passe" now. What is new? Small reproductions of the melted clocks but with shiny diamonds or of "Alice" with hundreds of small diamonds, turning on a pedestal.
Dali created these jewels to be looked at:"Without a public, without the presence of spectators these pieces of jewelry would not fulfill the purpose for which they were created. Therefore, the spectator is the final artist. His sight, his head,his spirit -with more or less an ability to understand the creator's intend- give life to these pieces of jewelry." This is a quote from Dali himself.
The problem is that his work has been misused in so many occasions that I can hardly get the message anymore.

However, it is a great adventure to visit "Espace Dali" . The presentations include paintings, drawings, lithographs and of course sculptures. Hanging on the walls are real jewels to look at.

On my way back, I stopped by the gallery 3 F ( 58, rue des 3 Freres 75018) and visited the temporary exhibition of a photographer who shows flamenco dancers swirl like dervishes. His name is Andre Rigaud.

photograph from the author