Salvador Dalí probably made his mark in the history of mankind as an important painter, but this versatile artist also established himself very successfully as a sculptor, graphic artist, illustrator, designer, writer, screenwriter, filmmaker and director. And thanks to this versatility, he is considered one of the greatest artistic geniuses of the 20th century. The Enigma exhibition in Opletalová Street in Prague presents an extensive collection of Dalí's bronze sculptures, three-dimensional objects, illustrations and jewelry.
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The exhibition was created on the initiative of the Dalí Universe company, which is the administrator of one of the largest private collections of the artist's works. This company is headed by Italian collector and art dealer Beniamino Levi, who worked with Salvador Dali in the 1960s. Levi devoted his whole life to collecting Dalí's works, especially three-dimensional objects. Bronze sculptures of incalculable value are created using the so-called lost wax. This technique is based on the production of a wax model, according to which a mold is later created and molten bronze is poured into it. Probably the most famous work that we can see at the exhibition is the sculpture Persistence of Memory, which is a variation of his famous painting of the same name from 1931. This time Dalí hung a running clock on an olive tree, which is a typical symbol of the Cadaques region, where the artist spent the summer months of his life . The spread structure of the clock expresses the insignificance of time. The same motif was also captured by the author in the sculpture Dance of Time 3, where the clock is melted in green. In the artist's understanding, time changes, expands, flows, does not respect the strict laws of the clock and seems to be constantly dancing. Dalí generally had a very close relationship with the art of dance. This is evidenced by the fact that in New York, where he took refuge with his wife Gala during the Second World War, he himself created the ballet Tristan fou. Later, he wrote the libretto and designed the scenography for the ballet performance Galin Balet, which premiered in Paris in 1961. But he was probably most impressed by Spanish flamenco, which is reminded of by his next sculpture called Dalí's Dancer. The inspiration for this work was probably the Spanish flamenco queen La Chana, of whom he was a passionate admirer and often attended her performances. Literally the cult work of the author is the statue of the Cosmic Elephant with unnaturally thin long legs, carrying a golden obelisk on its back. He used the long-legged elephant motif from his painting The Temptation of Saint Anthony from 1946, in which he depicted four elephants carrying four different burdens as symbols of different temptations. The golden obelisk on Dali's elephant does not seem like a heavy burden at all, but rather as if it were just floating in a vacuum. The artist's obsession with the color gold was based on his belief that he was a descendant of the Moors, and this origin of his was carried over into his work and his oriental style of dress. At the Enigma exhibition, in addition to bronze sculptures, we can also admire glass objects. This collection was created in cooperation with the well-known French glass company Daum Cristallerie. It is a set of transparent plastics, modeled in colored glass, using the technique of pressing into forms, which, according to the artist, best enables his surreal perception of reality. But gold jewelry, book illustrations or pieces of furniture created according to his own designs are also interesting. In addition, the exhibition is very tastefully lit, so that every visitor is drawn undisturbed into the abstract world of the artist. Salvador Dalí was influenced by the work of the founder of modern psychology, Sigmund Freud, whom he considered his spiritual leader all his life, and he himself calls the method that supports his work the paranoid critical method. He is one of the most prominent representatives of surrealism, although he later parted ways with the surrealist group due to disagreements. Nevertheless, he left behind a fascinating world of dream magic, fantastic creatures, full of bizarre but impressive symbols and metaphors.
Vladimír Dubeň