Surrealism stretches out: A day at the Dali museum in Spain
Salvador Dali designed it to be ‘a great surrealist object’ that would cause people to ‘leave with the sensation of having had a theatrical dream’.
A diving suit hangs over the entrance of the Dali museum in Figueres, Spain.
It’s a contraption in which Salvador Dali nearly suffocated while delivering a lecture; he insisted on wearing it because he wanted to “dive into the depths of the human subconscious”.
Dali chose the spot over the front door. The museum was, in fact, built and curated by the artist. He wanted it to be “a labyrinth, a great surrealist object” that would cause people to “leave with the sensation of having had a theatrical dream”.
It sits about two hours north of Barcelona, in the Alt Emporda region where winding hills blend into craggy Mediterranean coastline. This is where Dali was born, died and created most of his surrealist art.
Monuments from his life dot the coastline. At Port Lligat is the fisherman’s cabin he lived in from 1930 until the death of his wife and muse Gala in 1982 (it has since been expanded into a house with a pool).
Pubol, less than 80 km away, holds the 11th-century Gothic castle he bought and renovated for her. This was where the couple spent their summers, from 1971 to 1980. She is buried in a crypt within.
And then there is Figueres. Situated about halfway between Port Lligat and Pubol, this is where he spent his childhood and his final years. The town’s cobblestoned streets are dotted with cafes, gift shops and art galleries dedicated to Dali.
Down one such street stands the fittingly strange, four-storey Dali Theatre-Museum. It is housed in a crimson building studded with pa de crostons (a local Catalan bread he loved) made of yellow concrete, and topped with giant, white concrete eggs.
The two-dozen rooms hold a cornucopia of early paintings and sculptures. One is dedicated just to drawings of this 100-km stretch, which he called his favourite coastline.
The museum was once a theatre. It hosted one of Dali’s first public exhibitions, when he was a teenager. Then it was bombed during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). The story goes that, at some point, the mayor of Figueres asked Dali if he would donate a painting to the town. He decided to do more than that. He decided this was where his art would live on, and picked the bombed-out theatre for the site of his museum.
He began to restore it in 1974, when he was 70. He would oversee work until his death in 1989; he was eventually buried in a crypt within.
Dali envisioned the museum as an interactive space where visitors could experience his art in all its outlandishness. It is not uncommon to hear gasps and giggles as it starts to rain, for instance, over two mannequins huddled in what was once his personal black Cadillac (Rainy Taxi, aka Mannequin Rotting in a Taxi-Cab).
In the Mae West Room, one experiences both his whimsy and his genius. Walk in and, at one point, the entire space comes together to take the shape of the actress’s face, perfectly recognisable; pouting, perhaps a little annoyed (paintings for eyes, a nose-shaped fireplace, a red-lipped couch, and blonde curtains, shaped just right, for her hair).
The artist’s oyster-shaped bed is preserved here, framed by marbled sea serpents. In the ivy-covered courtyard stand multiple Oscar-esque golden mannequins.
A new gallery, Dali Jewels, was added in 2001. It houses 39 pieces of jewellery crafted from his designs. These include a cascading Tree of Life necklace in 18-karat gold, and a piece called The Royal Heart, crafted from gold, rubies, sapphires, emeralds and diamonds, with a vivid red centre that “beats” as a real heart might.
Although many of Dali’s most famous works are not here, the museum manages to represent the eras of his artistic life. There are some gems from his personal collection here as well: works by the likes of Marcel Duchamp and Gerrit Dou. And, one recognises with a gasp, turning a corner, a surrealist gem of his own: Soft Self-Portrait with Grilled Bacon (1941).
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