BACK TO THE EGG

Turn, face the strange: and it does not get much stranger than the Dalí Theatre-Museum, in Figueres, about an hour’s drive to the north of Barcelona.

It houses galleries of the Catalan artist’s work together with several site specific installations; though these are just layers of the onion of weirdness, as the whole building is one great surrealist masterpiece. It is also a mausoleum made entertainment, a joke on the gawping visitors who unknowingly trample over the great trickster’s grave.

Even amongst surrealists Dali was an enigma, he was perhaps the finest draftsman of the twentieth century; his technical skills and ability to capture the minutest details often overwhelmed by the shock of his rampant imagination.

The galleries give s good overview of Dali’s career and obsessions, from the pen drawn grotesques to the beautiful vibrant paintings, from gimmicky noodlings to eye-scorching masterpieces, sculpture, jewellery and installations.  Symbolism, and especially the great Spanish obsessions with sex and death, leaks out everywhere, but there is also plenty of absurd, random, fun.  Look for the hidden surprises in little nooks and on ceilings.

Dali: Barcelona Mannequin

If Salvador intended this strange place to remind the world of his brilliance, he has succeeded. It is striking just how many ideas he visited, en passant, and discarded, which later made the career of many “groundbreaking” modern artists.

His output was prodigious, there are several other Dali museums in Europe as well as permanent exhibitions in most major art museums around the world, and while there is too much to take in during a single visit to Figueres, I was still disappointed that iconic works such as the lobster telephone were not there. But perhaps to fixate on individual works is to miss the point of the Theatre-Museum.

Dali of course was noted / criticised (delete as your consider appropriate) for combining populist commercialism with high art, so don’t forget to visit the gift shop.