Dalí art exhibition: Rare Salvador Dalí artworks come to India for first time

Salvador Dal, a surreal from Spain, has never traveled to India, but his works are set to be on display there for the first day.

An extensive collection of more than 200 of his classic pictures, carvings, and watercolour drawings will be on display starting on Friday at an exhibition in Delhi’s money.

The series has been curated by Christine Argillet, child of Pierre Argillet, a French collector who was also Dalí’s companion and publication.

” Dalí was fascinated by India, mainly, the West’s attraction with Indian spirituality in the 1960s and 1970s”, Ms Argillet told the BBC.

Some of the pictures in the series are based on images her father had taken while on a trip to India in the 1970s, when the hippie motion was at its height and young Americans who were guitar-trained to seek spiritual guidance.

Dalí’s India functions elephants and temples but, as with all his drawings, they’re not always easy to spot, having been rendered in the author’s brand modernist style.

In his functions, dismembered body elements engage vivaciously with the world around them, human bodies grow flowers from their heads, and ears dance in a column of squiggles and strokes. When these disjointed shapes become clear for more than a second, their connections and meanings emerge.

” Appreciating Dal’s craft is like peeling back the layers of an onion, you may stay finding something new to film at,” says Ms. Argillet.

Bringing Dalí’s job to India was a long and arduous venture, says Akshitta Aggarwal of Bruno Art Group, the global art museum presenting the show.

” The initiative took five times, every picture and drawings had to be checked for its authenticity”, Ms Aggarwal says.

Strictly speaking, this isn’t the first time Dalí’s paintings have come to India. In 1967, Dalí reportedly designed a set of funny ashtrays for Air India- the country’s regional airline up then- which were handed out to primary class passengers.

In return, Dalí demanded not money but a baby elephant. Uttara Parikh, the then deputy commercial director of Air India, recounted to Times of India newspaper how she initially went shopping for one in a zoo in Mumbai city but returned empty-handed.

She suddenly obtained the baby elephant from a zoo in Bangalore ( then Bengaluru), and Air India transported it to Spain, where it remained until its dying in 2018. Dal’s woman prevented him from trying to carry out his fascinating programs for the elephant, including taking a trip across the Alps.

Dalí’s demand may seem ridiculous, but those comfortable with the performer and his legacy understand that it was very far in keeping with his personality.

Dal was born in Spain in 1904, a country that was embracing the avant-garde and responding to the effects of two world wars. Designers of his day, like Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró and André Breton, were finding fresh ways to express themselves and their thoughts and their creative designs greatly influenced a fresh Dalí.

The surrealist movement, widely acknowledged to be founded by André Breton, resonated with him the most. According to Breton, the surrealist art advocated for a form of expression that was “dictated by thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason.”

Dal was also heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud and his theories regarding psychoanalysis, a treatment of mental illnesses by concentrating on conflicts that originated in a person’s psyche. Dreams are thought to be a way of expressing a person’s suppressed thoughts and urges, so they have a special significance.

Consequently, Dalí’s art reflects many of these ideas- they have an almost dream-like quality and through free association, the visuals take on meanings that are unique to the onlooker. There is also visceral, almost shocking imagery, much like forbidden desires lying hidden in the subconscious mind.

” Dalí was a free-thinker and he embraced all facets of the human condition, particularly the taboo and unsettling ones”, Ms Argillet says.

The artist’s outward persona reflected his colourful take on life. He dressed in flamboyant suits and sported a moustache that pointed upward so severely it seemed in danger of piercing his eyes. In a 1955 interview with the BBC, Dalí revealed the origins of his famous upturned moustache.

” Dates, you know the fruit? He said,” I did not clean my finger until the last moment of dinner, so I put a little in my moustache and it stays there very effectively all afternoon,” but later revealed that he had used a lot of wax to shape his moustache.

In the same interview, he described his moustache as being “very gay, very pointed, very aggressive”.

Ms. Argillet recalls Dal as a humorous person who enjoyed pulling jokes and” shocking the bourgeois” and who knew her intimately from childhood and teenage years.

He once persuaded her to hand out some candy to fishermen at a nearby beach by throwing them from his bedroom. Only the cherries turned out to be cherries, irritating the fishermen and making a young Ms Argillet flee for safety.

” At one of his parties, he had a tortoise carry around an ashtray on its shell”, Ms Argillet says.

But she adds that he was also a shy, intuitive, observant person who had a knack for reading people’s minds. He painted in his studio in short pants and slippers and, according to Ms Argillet, it was Dalí’s shyness that made him over-perform in public.

” He was misunderstood by many. There were many layers to Dalí, just like his paintings”, Ms Argillet says.

” The closer you look at his paintings, the more you understand Dalí”.

The exhibition” Dali comes to India” will run from February 7 through February 13 and runs from February 15 through March 16 through Bruno Art Group’s Masarrat Gallery.