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Dali at PMA
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Working temporarily for Visitor Programs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, I had the opportunity to view the Dali Blockbuster up close and from the inside, and I have to say that the phenomenon itself dominated the art viewing. Although the show was nothing if not comprehensive, it was also exhausting, especially when walking through with throngs of people in each room, and a bit steamy at times. For staff, there was also the tension behind the scenes. There to please visitors, we could pick up on their moods and requirements and even absorb their anger at times. I never thought it was such a big deal to check your coat! Some guys refused; it must be a macho thing. Others didn’t mind putting up with the crowds, standing in line to check their coats and standing in line again to get into the show. Though some definitely did not like being disappointed at the desk when they were told there were no tickets available that day, we tried to accommodate them. Did it not occur to them to call up and book advance tickets? Many drove from NY and further afield without doing so. Not smart. For some reason, the word never got out that the show was sold-out two weeks in advance for the last half of its run. Lots of families happily turned up perhaps not fully aware that many paintings featured fetishistic behavior! Oh well. You can’t protect the kids all the time. Goths and teens dug it, naturally. I even saw a biker type sporting a sex-and-death Dali tattoo. I had no idea Dali was a star of this magnitude. Many others came along to see what all the fuss was about and some had apparently never been to a museum before. Do they eventually become museum-goers? Probably not. I tried to impart that there is such a thing as museum etiquette for what it was worth. One evening highlight featured musicians who set up a game of digital exquisite corpse for visitors to play and projected images of ants crawling all over the massive columns in the main hall. Creepy. An actor dressed as Dali wandered around in a tux and his Gala wore a lobster on her hat. Electronic music was performed as we watched edits of le Chien Andalou. Very Cool. All this apart, the Museum survived Dali-Fever and the Surrealist turned out to be even more popular than expected, easily surpassing Cezanne, Van Gogh, and Manet in terms of visitation. Hopefully, the proceeds will keep the museum solvent for years. This impressive feat, made possible, in part, by an inspired and invasive advertising campaign, was really due to Dali’s unmatched popularity as an artist and cultural figure. Although still in disfavor with critics (let’s talk about that in a minute) Dali somehow confirms the public’s expectations about what an artist does. But, what exactly, do these thousands of people actually like about his work? The flashy nearly invisible paint handling? The melting watches, things posing as other things? Or the dream-like film work? I believe it is because, for all the weirdness, Dali’s work is essentially representational and set in believable landscapes most of the time. Unfortunately, these images aren’t dreams as so many people seem to think. One difficult part in viewing the paintings may be simply that they are so intricately detailed while the meaning remains opaque. There is a lot of Id and Ego 101. There is also little that is powerful simply on a formal level. This is what critics may have a problem with. After toying with many experimental forms, Dali hit on his illustrative style of psychological description (in 1927) and had a good run with it. “Melding cubism and a Breughal-like primitivism,” these “classic”paintings are easy to take in and are instantly recognizable as his. This exhibition clearly maps out his entire development but there is the added awkwardness of distinguishing the more famous works from all the reproduced images over the years. Am I wrong to think that a painting should resonate more strongly than the posters? So, it is the rarer, unseen work that presented a new view of Dali, perhaps a more singular view. As for the mega show¹s overkill, this suits Dali to a T. He would have loved seeing his signature ants, lips, and lobsters turned into candy and fridge magnets, and would have enjoyed seeing his face plastered all over town like Stalin. Adorning the front steps with his image was an appropriate case of quantity over quality. As for Dali’s influence, it’s curious that Warhol learned a trick or two about effectively creating a public persona, but it is a dubious thing at heart, especially because Dali’s work is not cold but extremely personal. While Warhol interwove his personality and art, Dali seems to use personality as promotion to help him set himself apart -- are there any other surrealists who are house-hold names? -- and sell pictures to the society set; another reason for the critical disfavor. © 2006 James Rosenthal and InLiquid.com; image copyright © Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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