'Confusion is Dali,' says curator of biggest-ever show

Soft watches sculpted in bronze, elephants perched up on their hind legs, illustrations for "Hamlet" and poems by Chairman Mao Zedong make up part of the largest Dali exhibition ever held in China, which is showing now at Shanghai Art Museum.

Salvador Dali (1904-1989) built his fame on the striking and bizarre images he created, as well as his flamboyant personal image and eccentric public behavior. Now visitors can see the visionary works of arguably the greatest surrealistic artist the world has ever known with a collection of more than 350 sculptures, furniture designs, paintings, drawings and prints.

This includes the artist's largest existing painting, a 5.2-meter-high piece that has been rarely displayed to the public. "Spellbound", which depicts a set of giant eyeballs gazing out to audiences, was commissioned by Britain's master of suspense, filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock. The image was inspired by one of Hitchcock's dreams and was used as a background scene in his movie of the same name, which revolves around a doctor haunted by his nightmares and dark childhood memories.

All the artwork belongs to the Stratton Foundation, a private institute owned by Beniamino Levi, an Italian gallery owner who has been collecting Dali's works for the past 40 years. With the Espace Dali in Montmartre, Paris, and the Dali Universe in London, the Stratton Foundation boasts the largest collection of Dali artwork in the world, with a total of more than 1,000 pieces.

"This year marks the 20th anniversary of Dali's death. I have chosen some special pieces of artwork to be shown in Shanghai, especially those that have had less exposure, such as the black and white painting of a sewing machine with umbrellas," said Alex Doppia, director of the Stratton Foundation and curator of the exhibition.

"I've also chosen a wide range of small museum-sized sculptures from different periods of Dali's lifetime," he said, adding that the exhibition is insured to the value of 1 million euros ($1.44 million).

Levi, now in his 80s, is not in Shanghai for the show, but in a preface to the exhibition he recalled his life-long friendship with Dali, which started in the late 1960s.

"What struck me immediately was his ego-centric personality," he said, about the first time the pair met at the Maurice Hotel in Paris. "He began a seemingly endless monologue, which I was totally powerless to stop. ... His speech ranged over many fields: astronomy, art, philosophy and mathematics, with no apparent logic, and seemingly based entirely on a purely imaginative level."

When asked about the legion of unauthorized copies of Dali's art, Doppia replied "Confusion is Dali." He said the foundation started buying the copyrights of his artwork in the 1970s to protect it from such copies.

Doppia expects to tour other Chinese cities next year as he had been contacted by several art institutions in the country, he said.

"It's my dream to establish a Dali museum in Shanghai, just like the ones in Paris and London."

Some of the exhibits will move on to the Uwantart Gallery in Shanghai. They will also be shown at the Shanghai Art Fair in September.

"I believe Chinese collectors will be interested in the wonderful art of Dali," said Guillaume Arnoud, owner of Uwantart Gallery, whose experience in China dates back more than 20 years.

"We hope Dali's art can re-ignite the public passion for art at this moment, when the art market is badly affected by the economic recession," said Gu Zhihua, vice secretary of the organizing committee for Shanghai Art Fair, which has co-organized the Dali exhibition in Shanghai.

Until Aug 14, 9 am - 4:30 pm

Shanghai Art Museum

325 Nanjing Road W.

南京西路325号

Tel: 6327-2829

Tickets: 20 yuan

(China Daily 08/08/2009 page14)