| Dalí | |
| A Special Exhibition Review by Stan Parchin |
Philippe Halsman
(American, born Latvia, 1906-1979)
Tilted Head, 1942
Gelatin silver print
Philippe Halsman Estate/Courtesy of
Howard Greenberg Gallery, NYC
The popularity of Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) endures in Dalí,
a major special exhibition of his works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art,
its only American and final venue after the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, Italy
and extended through May 30, 2005. Michael Taylor, the PMA's Muriel and Philip
Berman Curator of Modern Art, and guest curator Dawn Ades are to be commended
for taking on the daunting task of organizing such a monumental retrospective during
the year of shows and events marking the centenary of Dalí's birth.
Some 18 galleries comprise this Herculean effort whose more than 200 works describe
Dalí's career as a painter, object-maker, filmmaker, ballet designer and writer.
Drawn entirely from public and private collections in the United States, Canada,
Europe, Mexico, Brazil and Japan, the exhibition includes an unprecedented 150
paintings. It places his artworks chronologically within their historical and
ideological contexts, reexamining Dalí's role in the history of modern art.
The introductory gallery features Dalí's Impressions of Africa (1938).
The oil on canvas painting displays his striking likeness in the left-hand foreground,
looking out starkly at the viewer with his right eye from behind a canvas on
an easel. His outstretched right hand gestures alarmingly to the observer about
some perceived foreboding presence (perhaps the spectral image of his lifelong
companion Gala's head above his own). All of this arrested and enigmatic action
takes place against a desert background. Well, hello, Dalí indeed.
Dalí then begins in earnest with a series of rooms dedicated to early
portraits, self-portraits and other compositions that examine the artistic prodigy's
early influences by Spanish Baroque masters Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664)
and Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) and well as Francisco de Goya (1746-1828), whose
works spanned the Rococo and Romantic periods. Other paintings in this part
of the show explore the artist's subsequent absorption of the basic principles
of Impressionism and Cubism.
The period of Dalí's artistic output most characteristically Surreal (with his
biomorphic shapes and optical illusions) from 1929 to 1939 is adequately represented
in the show. This began when André Breton, founder of the Surrealist movement
in 1924, accepted the artist into his fold. Dalí subsequently embraced the psychoanalytic
theories of Sigmund Freud, assimilating them into his paintings. The artist's
invention of the Paranoiac-Critical method allowed Dalí to explore the deepest
recesses of the subconscious while producing many of his complex career's most
recognizable works. Here the curators chose to dwell upon Dalí's William
Tell (1930), an oil and collage on canvas piece. They deliberately expound
at length in both the wall text and recorded tour on interpreting the painting's
meaning based upon the artist's tortured relationship with his estranged father,
a reputable notary. These efforts further belabor the Freudian explanation regarding
notions of the artist's presumed castration complex, focusing on the
half-naked father brandishing a pair of scissors while pointing directly at
the exiled son.
Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)
Soft Construction with Boiled Beans:
Premonition of Civil War, 1936
Oil on canvas
Philadelphia Museum of Art,
The Arensberg Collection
Having passed through the gallery with the artist's three-dimensional Lobster Telephone (White) (1938), Mae West Lips Sofa (1936) and Venus de Milo with Drawers (1938), the viewer is treated to one of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's prized possessions. Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil War (1936), accompanied by five Studies (1934) for it, was Dalí's allegorical response to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Dalí and many of his artistic contemporaries reacted to the unsettling political times in 1930s Europe and the advance of fascism through their artwork. However, the message of Dalí's gruesome imagery is more apolitical than that of his contemporary Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) in his Guernica (1937). Where Picasso sided with the Spanish Republican forces during the war, Dalí's ambiguous and horrific composition revealed his belief that the war was an inevitability with little or no international importance. His indifference to this "delirium of auto-strangulation" in Spain led to his eventual dismissal from the Surrealists in 1939.
Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)
Apparition of a Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach, 1938
Oil on canvas
Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT
One of Dalí's best known works from the same period is Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach (1938). This oil on canvas masterpiece exemplifies the artist's refinement of his Paranoiac-Critical method. The painting combines multiple embedded images of a dog, human face and a fruit dish with pears on a tabletop against a beach landscape. One image's contours meld seamlessly into those of another, creating a heightened sense of visual drama meant to disturb the viewer.
Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)
The Madonna of Port Lligat (First Version), 1949
Oil on canvas
The Patrick and Beatrice Haggerty Museum of Art,
Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI,
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Ira Haupt
Dalí's Classic period after World War II concludes the show. This was when the artist turned his attention to nuclear science, religion and further experimentation with optical illusions. Profoundly affected by the explosion of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, The Madonna of Port Lligat (First Version) (1949) exemplifies Dalí's preoccupation with atomic physics and Catholic doctrine which he called Nuclear Mysticism. The painting's fragmented architectural elements surround the Madonna (in reality his beloved Gala) and Child suspended in space, defying the laws of gravity. The composition underscores Dalí's interests in particle physics while cleverly using Christian iconography from the Italian Renaissance in an attempt, perhaps, to reconcile faith and science during the later years of his career.
Well-written wall texts describing the contents of each gallery easily eclipse the labels accompanying the artworks. They merely provide the title, date(s), media and provenance of each piece displayed. Aside from the unavoidable crowds of viewers, five bottlenecks interrupt the show's flow. The $20.00 ticket price and $3.00 surcharge for any major retrospective in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Dorrance Galleries for Special Exhibitions is excessive. Dalí ephemera abound, making the show a bit too large. And there's one lobster telephone too many exhibited in this overly ambitious endeavor.
Special thanks to Rev. Raymond J. Sweitzer, SJ, a distinguished linguist and Art History enthusiast at Fordham University, for making this writer's trip to the Philadelphia Museum of Art possible.
About the catalogue:
Ades, Dawn. Dalí (exh. cat.).
New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 2004.
This 560-page tome by Dawn Ades, Dalí scholar extraordinaire, with color and black & white illustrations, documents the artist's development, personality and career as well as his place in the history of Surrealism. Much of the research included in the volume is fresh. And unique to this valuable book is an encyclopedia that lists all terms related to Dalí. A very complete chronology and bibliography are included.
For further reading:
Ades, Dawn (ed.), et al. Dalí's Optical Illusions (exh. cat).
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999.
This catalogue of the spectacular special exhibition held at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, CT is an absolute must-have for any serious student of Dalí.
Dervaux, Isabelle, et al. Surrealism USA (exh. cat.).
New York and Germany: National Academy Museum and Hatje Cantz Publishers, 2005.
Gille, Vincent, et al. Surrealism: Desire Unbound (exh. cat.).
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.
Zafran, Eric and Paul Paret. Surrealism & Modernism: From the
Collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art (exh. cat.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003.
Dalí has been extended through May 30, 2005 and is on view at The Philadelphia Museum of Art located on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26 Street, Philadelphia, PA 19130 (tel. no.: 215-763-8100; website: www.philamuseum.org). It's open Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM and Friday evenings until 8:45 PM. Tickets are required for entry to the show, are subject to availability and cannot be refunded. They cost $20.00 for adults, $17.00 for seniors, students and youths (ages 13 to 18) and $10.00 for children (ages 5 to 12). An additional service charge of $3.00 is added on to the price of each ticket purchased over the telephone or on the museum's website. No service charges apply to tickets purchased at the museum. All tickets are issued for a specific date and time and include a recorded tour. Outdoor parking is available behind the museum.
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From your Guide: Stan Parchin, Senior Correspondent for Museum/Special Exhibitions, is a specialist in ancient, late-medieval and Renaissance art and history. His interests include: the art and culture of Old and New Kingdom Egypt; the Italian and Northern Renaissances; Church history; and witchcraft, heresy and social dissent in late-medieval and early Modern Europe.
See all Special Exhibition and Catalogue Reviews from Stan Parchin.
