Dali, Dance + Beyond
Salvador Dali Museum St. Petersburg, Florida
Through December 31, 2010
Dali, Dance + Beyond at the Dali Museum of St. Petersburg, Florida, featuring never-before-displayed photographs, films, and objects documenting Salvador Dalí’s celebrated collaboration in the field of dance.
Salvador Dali worked with such luminaries of the dance as George Balanchine, Léonide Massine, and Maurice Béjart. The focus of the exhibition is on the ballets Bacchanale (1939), Mad Tristan (1944), and Gala (1961-1962), and the opera La dama spagnola e il cavaliero romano that preceded the ballet Gala.
The exhibition includes more than 45 images from Italy, Belgium, and the United States, postcards, books, correspondence, and other printed materials. They reveal not only an insufficiently documented period of Dalí’s artistic production, but also shed new light on how Dalí’s ideas—and Surrealism—evolved during this period. The exhibition includes the publication of a fully illustrated catalogue.
“Recently there has been a move to rehabilitate Dalí for his contribution to ‘low’ culture—his later work in fashion, jewelry, advertising, etc., and his role as a forerunner of the pop-art movement,” says curator Frédérique Joseph-Lowery. “We take a different approach. It is important to recognize his contribution to ‘high’ culture.” In his work on modern dance, Dalí created not only props, décor, and costumes, as is customary for visual artists, but also wrote the librettos, chose the music, and collaborated in the choreography of dancers’ movements.
Dalí, Dance + Beyond was organized by the Godwin-Ternbach Museum, Queens College, City University of New York.
The exhibition is curated by Frédérique Joseph-Lowery. The display at the Dalí Museum is arranged by William Jeffett, Chief Curator for Exhibitions.
Funding for the exhibition was provided by Le Musoir, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the Queens College’s Office of the President, and the Friends of the Godwin-Ternbach Museum.
Salvador Dali Museum St. Petersburg, Florida
July 9 - December 31, 2010
Museum web site at www. thedali.org.
