Gala in Barcelona

The MNAC claims the artistic role of Gala beyond Dalí’s muse

Gala in Barcelona

The Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (MNAC) places the focus on the character of Gala, Salvador Dalí’s partner, as the “key” character of the avant-garde of the 20th century, and gives her an artistic role beyond her muse facet of artists in the first major international exhibition dedicated to his figure.

It has been explained by the curator of the show Gala Salvador Dalí. An own room in Púbol, Estrella de Diego, together with the director of the MNAC, Pepe Serra, and the director of the Dalí Museums, Montse Aguer, in the presentation on Thursday of the tour of the different facets of the creator.

Just as with Dalí, Gala was part of a “collaborative project” that led the artist to sign with a ‘Gala Salvador Dalí’, the sample arises from an institutional alliance that wants to demonstrate the thesis that both characters were mutually constructed and gave birth to a third artistic character.

The exhibition, which brings together 315 paintings, drawings, photographs and documents related to Gala, part of Púbol as a “great surrealist object”, which Gala used as the room that Virginia Woolf claimed.

The exhibition discovers a very cultured Gala with many facets in which the route is divided and between which the curator has cited the surrealist, the dandy, the creator and the writer, as well as the muse as she builds her own path as an artist : write, make surreal objects and decide how you want to represent yourself.

Bad and manipulative?

“If Gala was so bad, so manipulative and she was so interested in money, why in 1929 did she leave the famous Paul Éluard, poet spoiled with surrealism, to go with an unknown Salvador Dalí?” Asks the curator and biographer. gala.

Knowing that many things have been said about Gala – Helena Dmitrievna Diakonova (Kazan, 1894-Portlligat, 1982) – the curator has said that this is “much more bad than it was said because it is more complex than it is Believe. ”

The exhibition reveals the changes in the image of Gala through its different ‘performances’, reflected by Dalí’s brushes, and allows to follow the evolution of the painter thanks to an important set of oil paintings and drawings: “To review Gala is to review Dalí, and this was a performer. ”

In addition, Dalí’s oil paintings and drawings on Gala can also be seen in the exhibition works of other artists who gravitated in the surrealist universe, especially around Gala, such as Max Ernst, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Cecil Beaton and Brassaï, among others .

Max Ernst and Man Ray

The exhibition tries to shed light on who Gala really was, and to understand who was this woman who does not go unnoticed, who awoke the hatred of André Breton and Luis Buñuel, the unconditional love of Éluard and Dalí and the passion of Max Ernst, in addition to be a model for Man Ray.

The task of the curator has been to “fill gaps” in the history that had not been addressed until now, and notes a facet of outstanding literary creation that can be seen with letters -especially to Éluard- and manuscripts -such as diaries- present in the exhibition, as well as surrealist objects and ‘performances’.

For the curator of the exhibition -defrayed by Abertis in collaboration with the Damm Foundation-, Gala “is the key character missing from the surrealist board” and the exhibition tries to give this character the role that corresponds to it.

The exhibition also brings together a collection of Russian Gala books, and brings together a collection of dresses and objects, which have had to be restored to be displayed. Claims the facet of ‘dandy’ of Gala: “The dandys were always men, because they were the ones who looked, and here it happens the other way around, because it is Gala that looks”.

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Exhibitions in Cadaqués August-2017

The artistic languages of the unconscious mark the summer of Empordà with a show that brings together Dalí and Picasso, among others

Exhibitions in Cadaqués-August-2017

André Breton, the father of surrealism, published in 1938 Trajectoire, a compilation of dreams written, among others, by Paul Éluard, Benjamin Peret or Michel Leiris and dreams painted by De Chirico, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Man Ray or Dalí. This book is now the starting point of the exhibition L’espai dels somnis, which has been opened in the Societat l’Amistat of the Casino of Cadaqués. Dreams become artistic language.

The Mayoral gallery in Barcelona, ​​which has specialized in the art of the avant-gardes of the twentieth century, has sought this time a project that unites several artists through a common thread. And the result is a collective one about the plastic representation of the unconscious, with an exceptional list of artists headed by Dalí, Miró, Picasso, Calder, Óscar Domínguez, Chagall, Magritte, Hamilton … He has performed in Cadaqués Until August 15) and from September 14 will move to Barcelona, ​​the Mayoral gallery.

The poet and essayist Vicenç Altaió, who defines himself as a cultural agitator and idea-broker, is the curator of the exhibition. “The dream is creative,” he says as a presentation, although it was not until the twentieth century when artists began to interpret it in different ways and in a more systematic way. Sigmund Freud had a lot to do and one of his masterpieces: The interpretation of dreams. We know that Salvador Dali read it while he was at the Student Residence in Madrid, a few years before he burst into the surrealist group of Paris by contributing his paranoid-critical method of interpretation of reality. And of him are exposed five works, among which stand out the watercolor Rhino in disintegration (1950) and the drawing in ink and gouache Sewing machine with umbrella (1951).

Although the reaction of European intellectuals to World War I was nihilism and Dada art, the subsequent years – with the crisis, the consolidation of the Soviet revolution and the formation of fascism – gave rise to an art of affirmation, Which was also of subversion. Artists are, however, divided between realistic engagement and aesthetic revolt. Some, like Miró or Dalí, will stay halfway. Vicenç Altaió even speaks of a “Catalan dream”, which began the poet J.V. Foix, affirmed with Miró and Dalí and that will have continuity in Tàpies and Ponç, basic nucleus of the Dau al Set. And we could even speak of a Cadaques branch, which, in addition to Dalí, is also expressed through the almost naive dreams of the painter Àngel Planells, son of this population, also present in this exhibition, with the oil Somni oblidat, 1936 .

Not forgetting that in 1929 the group of surrealists arrived in this corner of Cape Creus, formed by the poet Paul Éluard and Gala, the gallery owner Camille Goemans and the painter René Magritte (of whom the gouache La, of 1948) is exposed here. Later on by Cadaqués, Marcel Duchamp, also author of the cover of a book of poems and photographic collages gathered under the title of La (1936), another reference of the exhibition. And Man Ray, who in 1933 will photograph the rocks of Cape Creus, on the orders of Dalí for the magazine Minotaure, which, as if it were a dream, take forms of animals and objects. In the exhibition of Cadaqués there are no photos of Man Ray, but yes in the dedicated to De Chirico that can be seen at the CaixaForum in Barcelona.

Dreams are awake, as opposed to dreams asleep or revealed, dreams about dreams. And the works of these artists establish a dialogue between themselves, with sometimes coinciding languages, divergent in many cases. In the exhibition they are from two drawings of Dream and, of 1937 – paragons of an art subordinated to the social and political needs – to the aesthetic subversion of Joan Miró in the gouache Projecte per a The vol de l’alosa or the poetic vision By Marc Chagall at Le Christ. In the same way that includes an exceptional oil of Óscar Domínguez, of 1937, titled Personnages surréalistes, with own elements of the cosmogony of Dalí or Magritte.

The exhibition has two complements: the debate held on Sunday, July 23 between Vicenç Altaió himself and filmmaker Albert Serra, moderated by Montse Aguer, director of the Teatre-Museu Dalí, and the catalog of the exhibition to be presented in Barcelona . The catalog, in English, will include the contents of this debate, a theoretical text by Altaió, an interview by Llucià Homs to the renowned art critic Hans Ulrich Obrist – who with Francesco Bonami gathered at the Venice Biennale a new generation of artists under the Project The dreams-and an epilogue by Albert Serra. “Dreams are desires, the result of a tension between the rational and the irrational,” says Albert Serra.These days the Roi soleil exhibition is also being prepared, which will focus the summer’s programming on the gallery Cadaqués, directed by Huc Malla. And the invited artist is precisely Albert Serra, who on August 12 will present a documentary about a performance in Lisbon on the occasion of the presentation of his film La muerte de. In this performance, in the Graça Brandão gallery in Lisbon, Lluís Serrat, the actor who made of Sancho in Honor of cavalry, was put in the skin of the professional actor Jean-Pierre Léaud.

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Dalí & Cadaqués

An exhibition in Cadaqués analyzes the aesthetic similarities between the three artists

Dalí & Cadaqués

It may seem strange but it is a chess game with three players: Marcel Duchamp, Salvador Dali and Man Ray. The three joined them for their interest in this board game, although only Duchamp lived it as a real passion, and fascinated them as a sham movements of life and death. This relationship and aesthetic confluences between them nourish the exhibition Dalí, Duchamp, Man Ray. D’escacs a game until October 17 can be seen in the municipal museum of Cadaqués, curated by Pilar Parcerisas.

The game trialogue started in 1933, when Duchamp first visited Dali in Cadaques. That summer commissioned Man Ray made a foto of various Gaudi buildings in Barcelona to illustrate an article Dali. At the end of the year the magazine Minotaure published “From térrifiante edible beauté et de l’architecture ‘modern style’ ‘where the artist opens his theory of edible beauty. Man Ray also made several pictures of Dalí in Portlligat covered with a sheet showing that interventionism and always he displayed the painter when it came to his own image.

That first meeting in Cadaques resulted in a text, whose manuscript was found in the archives of the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation in Figueres, entitled Je mange Gala. The painter shows the erotic desire as voyeur provokes the encounter between Duchamp and Gala during a trip to Pla de Tudela, in the Cap de Creus. According to this story, Gala approaches a Duchamp skin reddened by the sun that reminds you of grilled ribs are preparing fishermen on the beach. Pilar Parcerisas interprets this scene caused him to Dalí “enormous erotic jealousy which generated two reactions: eat Gala, eliminating the object of desire, and urinate on himself, an ironic homage to Duchamp and his famous urinal Fontaine”. The text, which is reproduced in the exhibition is accompanied by a drawing, where Dalí appears masturbating behind a rock, and the same scene inspired the famous painting Portrait of Gala with Two Lamb Chops Balanced on his back.

Cadaqués will be the scene of the relationship between these artists in 1958. And from this date until 1968, Duchamp will spend his summer holidays in this corner of Cap de Creus, along with his companion Teeny, and they will come also Man Ray and his wife Juliet Browner. Both artists we see in photographs of Surrealist bullfight held in Figueres in 1961 in homage to Dalí. It was the day he announced the creation of his Theatre-Museum, which would place a Boîte en valise, Duchamp, a suitcase with a kind of pulldown catalog with reproductions of his works, including the Mona Lisa with a mustache and registration l.h.o.o.q. (Phonetically equivalent to “elle a chaud au cul”). Irony and sense of humor were also shared characteristics.

Duchamp and Man Ray made tours reflect the Empordà and the photos taken by the waterfall of them Escaules, near Figueres, in a lunchroom that surely Dalí recommended them. This cascade leads to the work Étant donnes (now in the Philadelphia Museum), considered the last great creation of Duchamp. Anyway, the exhibition three more pieces made in the summer of 1968 show, shortly before his death. On the one hand, drawing the face of Emili Puignau, mayor of Cadaqués, builder and manager of Dalí, and on the other a dedication to Dr. Vergara on a poster reproduction of N or descendant un escalier (Duchamp’s work that inspired a sculpture Dali). More interesting is the design that made for a anaglyph fireplace, which he built in the apartment he had rented in Cadaques. According Parcerisas with this fireplace “tries to reflect the concerns Stereoscopic years of its optical experiments.” This was another point of contact between Duchamp and Dali. The exhibition also shows the concern daliniana scientific inventions, double images and holograms work on new forms of representation of the image.

In 1918, during World War I, Duchamp went to Buenos Aires and decided to devote himself to chess. “The painting ever interested me less,” he said then. And when half a century later came to Cadaqués not only he played chess in cafes but people participating in local championships in other populations. Once Pierre Cabanne asked: “Is your life in Cadaqués is different than it has in Paris or New York?”. And he said, “Stay in the shade. It is wonderful. Everyone, on the contrary, sunbathing tanning is one thing that horrifies me. ” The game of chess fascinated the Cubists and is represented in works by Gris, Delaunay, Marcoussis or Mondrian. But the great popularizer was Duchamp, saying identify with the figure of the horse, probably because of their movement. Man Ray has pictures of boards and in the 20’s and 40 came to market several models. Dalí also made one commissioned by Duchamp. The chips were different representations of the fingers, but took a salt shaker towers of a hotel as a model.

For Duchamp, chess was a metaphor for his life. He once said: “Contemplating the formation of the chess pieces on the board carries an implicit mind purpose, in chess there is always a transformation of the visual aspect in gray matter, and art should spend the same.” The exhibition of Cadaques is in this sense an invitation to understand art as a poetic machine that can transform everything.

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Art in Cadaqués

Art in a chapel

Cadaqués-Sant Baldiri chapel

Tonight in Cadaqués may enter galleries and artist workshops until midnight. An experience that will be repeated on July 16, August 13 and September 10, under the so-called Estiu d’Art, a proposal that wants to recover the artistic potential that has characterized this population for more than a century ago .

Cadaqués is the periphery. It lies at the eastern end of Catalonia and owes much of its charm to isolation. And the same geographical location has become a haven for many artists. But the impact of mass tourism, the crisis of the art market and certain weariness among those who have promoted various initiatives has led to the artistic atmosphere of Cadaqués has languished in recent years. To curb this reality and recover vitalism is born Perifèric project.

The objective of this proposal is to promote artists and art galleries of Cadaques. “We want to break some negative dynamics that occurs in Cadaqués, as in many other places. Is coordinating artists and galleries, to promote quality and provide an opportunity to expose all those artists linked to Cadaqués, “says Pitu Gómez, one of the promoters of Perifèric, with Tony Azorín and Maria Sola. The first decision has been to bring together the ten existing galleries and artists linked to Cadaqués and to do a poster with 40, although at present there are ten others waiting. And the second was to look for an exhibition space, complementary to the ten galleries and the municipal museum that already exist. First it was thought at the Corral de Gala a space council property that had belonged to Salvador Dalí, but is awaiting rehabilitation. But then came the option of the hermitage of Sant Baldiri, a small chapel near the cemetery of Portlligat hardly used except for some burials.

Thanks to the good availability Jaume Angelats Parson and the help of the bishops of Girona, this winter has been clean, restore and paint the nave of the chapel. “And the chapel has been available to artists,” concludes Pitu Gomez, who also runs the gallery Dieu, moviment creatiu, on the same avenue of Sant Baldiri. Except the altar and the saint, the rest of the space, which includes the four side chapels, have been stripped of all adornment and religious symbolism and available to artists.
On June 11 he opened the first exhibition with works of Tom Carr. From the last 17 it was the turn of Sebastian Skira. But those who leave today to visit the chapel and find your relay: Maya Cusell, which performs the opening at 19 hours. The next weekend will be a double performance: 52 Parlament on Friday and Saturday with Fina Miralles. Until October is expected to pass eight other artists. In addition, each vernissage there is a restaurant in the town offering a small taste.

Sebastian Skira, born in Cadaqués in 1980, the son of a renowned gallery owner and grandson of one of the great editors of European art, the Swiss Albert Skira, has been for a week watching the reactions to his work. It is “four square white floating on the dry stone walls” pieces of lacquered aluminum, with a texture that reflects and varies with daylight.

There was nothing else except an old “postalero” with blank postcards of the same texture, a whole irony about tourist souvenirs. And as if it were the thing, Skira has gone around the banks of the chapel for them to look toward the door. A lady comes in and asks if the church is ready for a wedding. Another spectator believes the paintings are part of the new decoration of the chapel. Sebastian Skira write it down on a notepad where you might be born another art project.

The hermitage of Sant Baldiri, which was begun in the late seventeenth century, consists of a single ship with semicircular head and portalada, semicircular arc, which has recorded the date 1702. The chapel is next to garden Dali’s house and from the porch is accessed Portlligat cemetery, where are buried the father and sister of the painter. Although this cemetery is little known, it has all the flavor of marine cemeteries, with several sculptures, including one of Josep Llimona.

The silhouette of the hermitage of Sant Baldiri is part of the iconography daliniana as the artist often played with the shape of the top of the bell tower and the bell made her a double image of a dancer. There is also a known photo of Dali to the chapel, which made him Francesc Català Roca in the ’50s.

The artistic offer summer in Cadaques has another focus in the exhibition Dalí, Duchamp, Man Ray. A d’starting escacs, which opened last 18th and will remain open until 17 October in the municipal museum. It has been curated by Pilar Parcerisas and also has a detailed catalog that complete the exhibits and the relationships between these three creators. This exhibition, which deserve a more detailed article, has its origin in the first visit Duchamp made to Cadaques in 1933. And as a result of the contact established with Salvador Dalí, they commissioned Man Ray that would make a series of photographs of buildings of Gaudí to illustrate an article of the Catalan painter for the magazine Minotaure. He concludes with pictures of what was the last work of Duchamp in Cadaqués: the anaglyph fireplace he designed for his house.

Visitors today come to Cadaqués will also be able to attend three vernissages: the double exhibition of sculptor Javier Corberó and artist Javier Mariscal, in the gallery Patrick Domken; Exposure Silk thousand fils in Marges-U, Gustau Carbo and Nobuko Kihira; and Jean Claude Bouthier, in the gallery Iturria. They may also consider other exhibitions and open Ramon Bigas (Societat l’Amistat), Francesc Llopis (gallery Dieu), permanent Tony Azorín and Maria Sola (gallery El Carro), permanent Elodie Loiseleur, Javier Aznárez and Ilich Roimeser ( workshop Tabakov) and an exhibition of old editions of the Cadaqués Gallery Bombelli (Espai Two). The Workshop Gallery will be exposed Fort winners 36 Mini Print International of Cadaqués and also exposing Cristina Perez and Alay (last year’s winner) is presented. Just last day 15, the Library of Catalonia in Barcelona presented the donation of the collection of engravings winners of all editions of the Mini Print International of Cadaqués. It is more than two hundred prints that complete the graphic background of the Library of Catalonia and reflect the diversity and evolution of this artistic technique. According highlighted the director of Print International, Merce Barberà, the collection is made up of the winners of this award held since 1981 in the Fort Gallery. The contest comes to meet annually to 650 artists from around the world. Since 1992 the Mini Print is also presented in England and France.

For Saturday July 2 is scheduled to open season the Cadaqués Gallery, this year with an exhibition dedicated to Joseph Beuys, in which you can admire his and other contemporary artists work. And the planning for the rest of the summer in Cadaques include other names such as Dominica Sánchez, Christine Valcke / Pau Riba (presenting a book of poems illustrated) and America Sanchez, in the gallery Dieu; Inka Martí, Koyama and Moscardó brothers, Patrick Domken in the gallery; or Casademont le vieux and Pilar Villuendas (L’Amistat).

A simple tribute is also planned the painter Antoni Pitxot in early August with placing a monolith in his honor near his house, run by the Friends Dalí Museums. A full Estiu d’art that will tonight one of his first inedible, or other dishes, like Dali would say.

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