Extravagant, provocative, sensible, conciliatory: how to evoke the complex personality of Dalí by visiting the house where he was born – this is the challenge of the spectacular museum installation that has just been inaugurated in Figueres. The Birthplace of Salvador Dalí – promoted by the Figueres City Council and directed by the Museu de l’Empordà – does not compete with the Dalí Theater Museum, it complements it with a new and exciting place.
The tour is dense and captivating, the common thread is traced by Dalí’s words and thoughts that accompany all stages of the visit. The concept and execution are due to Dani Freixes
“Dali’s surrealism is not anchored in a time” says Dani Freixes – fortunately: thus his genuine interest in science and technology allows for continuity with the various modern methods of communication used in this evocation: large projections, mappings, holograms, giant kaleidoscopes and immersive landscapes. Technological feats are perceived subliminally, what prevails is the desire to transmit emotion and knowledge.
The house where Dalí was born in 1904 and where his father had the notary’s office now allows an appreciation of the painter’s entire career, beyond the details of his life here until he was seven years old, when the family changed residence. After sensitively recreating aspects of the family environment and evoking the Figueres of that time, the tour attests to the essential moments of the artist’s life and work, highlighting his phenomenal creative energy. The voice of a guide accompanies the visitor; The unity of the narrative is given by the constant presence of Dalí’s words, which with a contemporary voice illustrate the spaces-chapters that are crossed.
The most notable achievement of this creation is the very natural transition from the intimate family sphere to an increasingly cosmopolitan public world in which Dalí managed to develop with great speed. Settling into the student residence in Madrid in 1920 to study Fine Arts was the beginning of his great adventure. Luis Buñuel, who had already been there three years before, remembers him in his book My Last Sigh – a shy and withdrawn young man, who wore trench coats and very long scarves: they called him “the Czechoslovakian painter”, his paintings were quickly appreciated. in that group.
Another resident was Gabriel García Lorca, the elegant and magnetic poet from Granada who developed a true passion for “Czechoslovak”. Dalí – who often went to the Prado – remembers those years in a brief way: “Velázquez, Lorca, Buñuel and the ultraists – for me Madrid is this.” The ultraists that the three friends frequented were a Madrid avant-garde inspired by the Dadaists and the Italian Futurists.
A famous portrait by Dalí from those times – representing Buñuel “with several long, sharp clouds that I liked in a painting by Mantegna”, as the sitter states – plays an important role in the tour, being projected on a door that opens towards unexpected worlds. When he went to Paris, Buñuel – who after watching a Fritz Lang film had decided that he wanted to be a filmmaker – worked for a time on film crews learning the trade.
Aspiring to do something original, in 1929 he called Dalí who had returned to Figueres, proposing to write together a script for a film that would open all the doors to the irrational. The dream proposals of the two complemented each other wonderfully in a total consensus. Having the script, Buñuel – with money that his mother agreed to provide – filmed Un chien andalou in Paris in 15 days. In trying to present it, he has met Man Ray, Louis Aragón and the surrealists who adopted the film with great enthusiasm, recognizing an ideal example of “automatic writing.”
Immediately afterwards, Dalí was accepted with honors into the surrealist group, a moment that became for him a license to explain to the world all his phobias, his dreams, his intuitions, his false memories, his aphorisms… The second film that he proposed to him Buñuel – L’âge d’or, from 1930 – caused a great scandal that further paved his way to celebrity.
Inviting several surrealists to his home in Cadaqués, he met the poet Paul Éluard and fell in love with his wife Gala, who soon became Madame Dalí, his muse and his agent-manager. Under his influence, the obsession with fame and money has played an increasingly important role in his life.
Despite his efforts to minimize his painting in favor of his writings or other activities and other interests – Freud, DNA, holography, atomic energy, geodesic structures, stereoscopy, chaos theory… – it is precisely the phenomenal luminosity of his paintings that stands out. continues to impose itself when we think of Dalí. “If he were less intelligent, he would undoubtedly paint much better,” he said with his unmistakable mischief.