Salvador Dali - Liquid Desire
National Gallery of Victoria
Liquid Desire offers a thorough retrospective of the life and work of Salvador Dalí (1904-1989). As the sixth instalment of the NGV International's Winter Masterpiece series, the exhibition brings together over 200 pieces from Dalí's prolific output, from the traditional paintings and drawings, to etchings, sculptures, photographs, fashion, jewellery, film, television and even holography.
A smorgasbord of the profound and the ridiculous, Liquid Desire offers a full and colourful view of one of the worlds most celebrated- and criticised- artists.
The exhibition takes us on a chronological tour of Dalí's work, from his efforts as a precocious young Impressionist, through his experimentations with Cubism, Abstraction, Neoclassicism and New Objectivity as a student in Madrid, to his leadership of the Surrealist movement in Paris in the 1930s, and the hodgepodge of styles and ideas he played with in his later years back home in Catalonia.
The serious and the frivolous exist side by side, displaying all the contradictions of this enigmatic artist. The exhibition invokes the ongoing debate about Dalí: was he a creative genius, innovatively exploring the inner workings of the psyche, or just a shallow, commercially oriented prankster?
Dalí's paintings are often scorned as nothing more than an indulgent overlay of random objects and genitalia, but the images on display in Liquid Desire conjure an element of profundity, or at least an attempt at one.
Slave Market with Apparition of the Invisible Bust of Voltaire (1940) shows Dalí's enjoyment of the richness of form and double imagery, using evocative spaces to create an optical illusion that demands to be viewed closely.
Soft Self Portrait with Grilled Bacon (1941), which depicts a mask of melting bronze propped up by mini crutches and flowing from a golden pedestal, displays his fascination with the concepts of hard and soft and the fluidity of existence.
Other highlights, such as Memory of the Child Woman (1932), The Hand. The Remorse of Conscience (1930), and of course The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (1952–54) present a rich and emotive dream world filled with Dalí's trademark images of ants, keys, crutches, lobsters, bread, eggs and watches, sprawled amongst the fantastical rock formations of his beloved Cap de Creus.
Dalí said, "All I want to be is Salvador Dalí. But the closer I get to my goal, the further Salvador Dalí drifts away from me." Liquid Desire reels this elusive Salvador Dalí back in, bringing the man, the artist and the legend closer to us all.
Liquid Desire is open daily 10am- 5pm from 13 June to 4 October 2009, and until 9pm every Wednesday at the National Gallery of Victoria.
4 stars out of 5.
