DALÍ 21 NOVEMBER 2012 - 25 MARCH 2013

Over thirty years after the major experiences on our relationship with retrospective exhibition dedicated to space, matter and reality. the painter in the early days of the The imaginative, curious and prodigal Centre Pompidou, Dalí – the artist artist used himself as a subject of who proclaimed himself as “divine” study, notably under the prism of and a “genius” – is once again in the Freudian psychoanalysis. He built his media spotlight. Dalí is both a key own character and set the scene for figures in the history of modern art his own performance. His actions in and one of the most popular. He is the public sphere, whether calculated also one of the most controversial or improvised, now reveal him as one artists, often denounced for his of the precursors of showmanship. showing-off and his provocative political positions. The Dalí exhibition brings together over 120 paintings, as well as Creator of an unprecedented drawings, objects, sketches, films and dreamlike universe, Dalí is mainly archival documents. It is laid out in known for his surrealist paintings of chronological-thematic sections: the the 1930s and for his television dialogue between the artist’s eye and appearances. The inventor of the brain and those of the spectator; Dalí, famous “paranoiac-critical”w method a pioneer in showmanship, creator of also echoed his era’s scientific ephemeral works and media discoveries, which impelled him to manipulator; the questioning of the constantly push back the limits of his artist’s figure in the face of tradition.

www.centrepompidou.fr ULTRA-LOCAL AND UNIVERSAL showing like in the Écorchés collection. As from 1928, influences from the paintings of Joan Miró Figueres, the city where Salvador Dalí was born, and Yves Tanguy, as well as works by Jean Arp, is the alpha and the omega of the construction of became increasingly obvious. Biomorphic beings, his myth. The life and death of the artist forever punctuated with attributes having sexual merge under the sky of Emporda, a region with a connotations such as breasts and navel, are mountain backdrop which seems to have been putrescent, eaten by vermin and floating in space, drawn by Leonardo da Vinci. Figueres, the upheld by their death energy. The iconography of Republican free-thinker, impregnated with the putrefactos (“putrefied”, or “rotten”), which utopian socialism and federalism, Figueres, the was meant to be the subject of a book in 1925 cradle of Sardana, is a border region through with the literary collaboration of García Lorca which avant-garde, liberal ideas seeped into found its accomplishment in Dalí’s collaboration Catalonia. Dalí set out to transform the region’s with Luis Buñuel for the film Un chien andalou , 1929. natural landscape into a mental and universal landscape. In 1921, at the age of 18, Dalí painted himself in front of a coastal Emporda landscape; SURREALISM AND THE in the background is the Cala de Sa Sabolla PARANOIAC-CRITICAL METHOD bathed in light and, in the middle distance, The fulfilment of Dalí’s sexuality after he met Gala the peninsula of Sortell close to which the family (1929) occurred at the same time as the major home was located. In the foreground of this Self- turning point in his career: his meeting with the portrait with the neck of Raphael , the head breaks surrealists. out of the landscape under a more subdued light. He undertook all sorts of transgressions in His neck, which is deformed beyond the bounds meticulous paintings where every detail counts: of human standards, becomes a phallus-like invisible father, blasphemed mother, organ. This neck is also the attribute of genius masturbation, melting objects... and the divine being that Dalí strives to embody in “Paranoia uses the outside world to convey the this confrontation with the Italian master obsessive idea, with the disturbing characteristic Raphael. As suggested by the title of the painting, of making the reality of this idea valid for others”, Dalí painted himself with a neck like the one writes Dalí. “The reality of the outside world painted by Raphael is his Self-portrait dated 1506. serves as an illustration and proof, and is used to support the reality of our mind.” Based on this FROM THE RESIDENCIA DE observation, he creates the paranoiac-critical ESTUDIANTES TO THE PATHS method. Through inversion, it prevents one from OF SURREALISM becoming the victim of delirium; on the contrary, it promotes delirium with the broadest possible At the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid, audience. Dalí gives an example of this when he where he lived from 1922, Dalí became friends turns into an art historian and attempts to with the poet Federico García Lorca and the scientifically verify his delirious interpretation of filmmaker Luis Buñuel. Permeable to modernist Millet’s Angelus . He sees the woman in Millet’s currents – cubism and purism – as well as more painting as a praying mantis, getting ready to academic currents (then called the “return to devour the male, the man whose sexual organs order”), Dalí’s paintings progressively shifted are hidden by a hat, like a victim waiting for death. towards a “new objectivity”, in the form of poetry Dalí thus creates double images, where forms without sensation. A new world of dreamlike give rise to multiple visions and interpretations. nature came into being, based on an osmosis This gives birth to a world of ambiguities where between devices derived from the mechanised certainties disappear. universe and a gruesome biology of headless bodies and dismembered parts where tissues have the transparency of jellyfish, and where organs are strewn about, with their blood vessels MYTHS AND HISTORY The museum includes the Mae West Room, a reconstruction of which is presented here as “History doesn’t concern me. It frightens me as an evocation. much as grasshoppers” (1973). With his friends from the Residencia de Estudiantes (Buñuel and García Lorca), and later on as part of the SCIENCE, MYSTICISM AND Surrealist group, the artist claimed to be “in the THEORY service of the revolution”. But which one? “I am like Leonardo, I want to know everything. The Communist revolution? Yet, the Enigma of Creating relations between things is my constant William Tell (1933) turns Lenin into a monster, preoccupation.” Deeply affected by Hiroshima and much to the discontent of Breton. Or the national- Nagasaki, Dalí managed to base his painting and socialist revolution, as assumed by the horror- experiments (holograms) on an improbable struck Breton who wanted to expel Dali in 1934? convergence between the “hardest” science and Or the Franco revolution? During the Spanish civil the strongest irrationality, mysticism, and war, Dali supported the unprecedented catholic between the most progressive knowledge and the reaction instilled by the Caudillo. Yet, despite his catholic reaction. The expression “Nuclear fascination for the absolute power of dictators, Mysticism” will be repeated over and over! Dalí used to let young hippies into his house at Painting melting clocks enabled him to give Portlligat and, throughout his life, embraced the shape to Einstein’s space-time continuum as well artistic myth of liberation, expressed for example as anticipate the repetitive twisted structure of when he wrote L’artiste ne dépend pas de l’Histoire in DNA. “It is very important for an artist to have a the Arts magazine in 1952 or in his pamphlet developed sense of the cosmos. I am more entitled My Cultural Revolution in May 1968. important as a cosmic genius than as a painter.” THEATRE SELF-REFERENCE AND GREAT “I am a theatrical painter”, said Dalí when he was MACHINES asked why he chose the old theatre of Figueres to set up his own museum. Dalí was certainly “In the heat of the antirealist chaos, at the peak of theatrical through his own figure, but also in his the Action Painting period, what strength is that permanent yearning to go beyond painting. of Velasquez !” (1960). Deep down inside him and In 1927, Dalí’s friendship with Luis Buñuel made in the contradictions of his tormented personality, him open up to cinema, seeing in this art form Dalí found his inspiration in pictorial tradition. a spirituality in the visible world which went far Yet, the artist’s recurrent explorations of the beyond spiritualist endeavours. With Luis Buñuel, works of the past ( Las Meninas by Velasquez, Dalí co-wrote the script of Un chien andalou , Millet’s Angelus , Vermeer’s Lacemaker , whose success in Paris in 1929 gave him Caravaggio’s Narcissus , Böcklin’s Isle of the Dead credentials to enter the Surrealist circle. or Oedipus and the Sphinx by Ingres) are not a The ban of their second film entitled L’Âge d’or , – quest for formal solutions, but rather a form of a scandalous and blasphemous film – introspection. The figure of the “master” finds in orchestrated the beginning of an irreconcilable Dalí’s stance as a constant agitator a surprising conflict between them. From unproduced film evolution into the era of the media and television scripts and ballets ( Tristan fou ) to censured shop- in particular. Too often considered as minor parts window displays for the Bonwit Teller department of Dalí’s career, performances and happenings store, Dalí was continuously disappointed and acted as a workshop open to the world. frustrated by the entertainment industry, for which he had a non-reciprocal fascination. The fulfilment of Dali’s theatrical inclination was the design of the Teatre-Museu in Figueres at the beginning of the 1960s, followed by its creation. TIME LINE 1945. On 6 August, the first atom bomb is dropped on “At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven Hiroshima. This marks the beginning of Dalí’s I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been “nuclear” (or “atomic”) period. growing steadily ever since.” He works with film producers such as Alfred S. Dalí, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí , Paris, Gallimard, 1942, p. 2 Hitchcock and Walt Disney. 1948. Dalí’s great European comeback. 1904. Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí was born on 11 May 1949 . He starts a series of religious paintings with 1904, the son of a notary, Salvador Dalí y Cusi, levitating figures. and Felipa Domènech. The couple had just lost 1954. With Robert Descharnes, he undertakes the their first son. production of the film Histoire prodigieuse de 1908. Birth of his sister Anna Maria. la Dentellière et du Rhinocéros . 1916. Discovery of impressionism. 1955. He produces a paranoiac-critical interpretation of 1922. Dalí goes to study painting, sculpture and Vermeer’s Lacemaker . He anticipates new trends, engraving at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes such as Neo-Realism and Pop Art. de San Fernando in Madrid. He moves into the 1960. With Philippe Halsman, he produces the Residencia de Estudiantes where he becomes performative documentary Chaos & Creation . friends with Luis Buñuel, Federico García Lorca 1964. Publication of Diary of a Genius . and others. He produces cubist paintings. 1967. Dalí’s attention is drawn to American 1925. First solo exhibition at Galeries Dalmau in hyperrealism, psychedelic art and kitsch. Barcelona. 1968 . He participates in the exhibition “Surrealism, 1926. Influenced by the works of Picasso. Expelled from Dada and their Legacies” at the MoMA the art school. in New York. 1929. Dalí goes to Paris to co-produce the film Un 1971 . Retrospective exhibition of Dalí’s work at the chien andalou with Luis Buñuel and joins the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Surrealist group. He meets Gala, who becomes Inauguration of a Dalí museum in Cleveland. his companion, adviser and muse. Dalí explores the techniques of holography and First sole exhibition in Paris at Galerie Goemans. stereoscopy. Disapproving the works exhibited and his 1974. Opening of the Teatre-Museu in Figueres. relationship with a married woman, Dalí’s father 1975. Dalí is admitted to the Académie des Beaux-Arts repudiates him. de l’Institut de France. 1930. Dalí and Luis Buñuel produce L’Âge d’or . Dalí 1979. Retrospective exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, invents his paranoiac-critical method. the biggest exhibition ever dedicated to the artist. 1932. Doctor Jacques Lacan becomes interested Dalí once again turns to Velasquez in Dalí’s theories on paranoia. and Michelangelo. First sole exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery 1982. He becomes a widower in 1982. His last paintings in New York. are inspired by the mathematical theory 1934 . Civil marriage with Gala. of catastrophes. 1936. Start of the Spanish Civil War and death of 1989. Dalí dies on 23 January at the age of 85. Federico García Lorca. Dalí takes part in the exhibition "Fantastic Art, Dada and Surrealism" at the MoMA in New York. 1938. An International Exhibition of Surrealism is held at the Galerie Beaux-Arts in Paris. Meeting with Sigmund Freud. Dalí works on ballet projects. 1939. He designs the Dream of Venus pavilion for the New York World’s Fair. Deterioration of his relationship with André Breton. 1940. The Dalí couple flees the war and settles in the United States where Dalí stands out as a public figure. His turns to classicism and realism for inspiration. Retrospective exhibition of Dalí’s work at the MoMA in New York. 1942 . The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí is published. EXHIBITION PUBLICATIONS IMPROMPTU Family visit CHIEF CURATOR CATALOGUE “Objet et moustache en délire” Jean-Hubert Martin Dalí , directed by J.-H. Martin, Sunday 3-02, 3 pm-6 pm M. Aguer, J.-M. Bouhours ASSOCIATED CURATORS and T. Dufrêne AUDIOGUIDE Montse Aguer 384 p., 450 colour ill. Languages: French, English, Spanish, Jean-Michel Bouhours Price: €49,90 German and Italian. Thierry Dufrêne Let you guided through ALBUM Dalí exhibition. RESEARCH Dalí , by Marie Bertran Also discover almost 70 works from Marie Bertran Bilingual version, French / English the Museum’s permanent collections, Murielle Dos Santos 60 p., 60 colour ill. €5, concessions €4, free for children Patrick Palaquer Price: €10,50 under 13. Rental of the audioguide at the ticket ARCHITECTS/DESIGNERS counter, level 0. Laurence Le Bris MONOGRAPHIE Retrieval at the Espace Audioguide, Oscar Tusquets Blanca Dalí , by J.-M. Bouhours level 0. assisted by Valentina Dodi 96 p., 60 colour ill. Price: €12 INFORMATION PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Sara Renaud APPLICATION iPAD 01 44 78 12 33 English and French version www.centrepompidou.fr Exhibition produced by the Centre Available on App store and Android Pompidou with the Museo Reina Price : €4,49 EXHIBITION OPEN TO THE PUBLIC Sofía, Madrid from 21-11 2012 to 25-03 2013 Galerie 1, Level 6 AROUND THE Every day except Tuesdays EXHIBITION from 11 am to 9 pm Ticket counters close at 8 pm COLLOQUE INTERNATIONAL DALÍ In partnership with the Fondació Evening visits on Thursdays, Fridays 23 and 24-01 2013, 2 pm to 6:30 pm and Saturdays until 11 pm Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres and Petite Salle the Salvador Dalí Museum, Saint Ticket counters close at 10 pm Petersburg, Florida UN DIMANCHE, UNE ŒUVRE ADMISSION Luis Buñuel / Salvador Dali, Access with the ticket “Museum Un chien andalou, b&w silent film, & Expositions” 1929 Valid throughout the day at the By Dominique Païni, Cinema Historian With the support of: Museum, for all exhibitions 25-11 2012, 11:30 am, Petite Salle and the Panorama, for a single as Main Sponsor admission in each space Salvador Dalí, Guillaume Tell, 1930 €13, concessions €10 By Jean Louis Gaillemin, Art Free with the annual pass and for Historian, Université Paris-Sorbonne under-18s and 10-02 2013, 11:30 am, Petite Salle Online ticket purchase and printing GUIDED TOURS IN FRENCH (full price only) In 2012, every Saturdays at 3:30 pm www.centrepompidou.fr/billetterie and Wednesdays at 7 pm In 2013, every Saturdays and Sundays TWITTER at 5:30 pm and Wednesdays at 7 pm In partnership with: More information on the exhibition can be found via Twitter (hashtag SPECIAL TOURS #Dali) or via http://www.twitter. - Lip-reading tour: for com/centrepompidou hearingimpaired persons Saturdays 8-12, 12-01 and 9-02 at 11 am In media partnership with: - Tour in French sign language: deaf visitors © Centre Pompidou, Direction des Saturdays 8-12, 12-01 and 9-02 publics, 2012 at 2:30 pm Graphic design - “Écouter Voir” tour: for visually c-album impaired visitors Saturdays 8-12 and 9-02 at 10 am Printing Friedling Graphique, Rixheim, 2012