Our GONZO! day with Salvador Dali
The old city theater of Figueres in Spain was burned during the Spanish Civil War and remained in a state of ruin for decades, but in 1960, Salvador Dalí and the mayor began lobbying to rebuild it as a museum dedicated to the town’s most famous son.
And in 1968, the city council of Figueres finally approved his plan, and construction began the following year. These linked images are from our full day visit.
Click on each image to enlarge.
The museum opened in 1974, and Dali himself expanded it through the mid-1980s. It now includes buildings and courtyards adjacent to the city’s old theater. The heart of the museum is that theater that Dalí knew as a child. It was where one of the first public exhibitions of young Dalí’s art was shown.
“I want my museum to be a single block, a labyrinth, a great surrealist object. It will be a totally theatrical museum. The people who come to see it will leave with the sensation of having had a theatrical dream.”
Salvador Dali
It displays the single largest and most diverse collection of works by Salvador Dalí, the core of which was from the artist’s personal collection. It’s overwhelming . . .
One highlight is a three-dimensional anamorphic living-room installation with custom furniture that assembles into the face of Mae West when viewed from a marked spot.
Another is the painted pixilated face of Abraham Lincoln. It’s real title: “Gala Contemplating the Mediterranean Sea Which at Eighteen Metres Becomes the Portrait of Abraham Lincoln”
Hey, it is a DALI! after all.
It makes little sense up close except for the Gala nude, but across the courtyard it becomes clear.
This was one of the very first images of any note using this pixelation technique now famous online and in Photoshop.
The museum also houses a small selection of works collected by Dalí from other artists , ranging from Bougereau and El Greco to Marcel Duchamp and John de Andrea.
In accordance with Dalí’s specific request, a second-floor gallery is devoted to the work of his friend and fellow Catalan artist Antoni Pitxot, who also became director of the museum after Dalí’s death.
Speaking of his death – a glass geodesic dome cupola crowns the stage of the old theater, and Dalí is buried in a crypt below the stage floor.
Of course he is. Theatrical to the end.
The space formerly occupied by the audience has been transformed into a courtyard open to the sky, and filled with Dionysian nude figurines standing in the old balcony windows.
A Dalí installation of a full-sized Cadillac is parked near the center of the courtyard space. It was inspired by his original installation displayed in 1938 at the Galerie Beaux-Arts in Paris as Rainy Taxi,
Peak inside – there are 2 figures inside. A chauffeur and a passenger in the rear.
It rains inside the car on everything . . . and yes, those are live snails.
Sources: Wikipedia, Most pictures are mine.
