In September 1941, Germany and Italy decided to build a submarine base in Bordeaux, in occupied France, to house their fleet and from here to be able to attack England. More than 6,500 workers worked on it, many of them Spanish republicans under punishment, and a year and a half later this immense dock was opened at the entrance to the Garona River, with bunkers with the capacity to hide up to 15 submarines.
Bombed by the allies during the war and abandoned after the conflict, this base became an artistic attraction over the years. For filming, for performances and finely as an exhibition space. In 2020, the company Culturespaces, considered the main center for digital art, with immersive proposals in Baux-de-Provence, Paris, Dubai, Seoul, Amsterdam, New York and Jeju, opened the Bassin des Lumières space in Bordeaux using of four large bunkers. And this year it offers one of his most relevant creations: Dalí, l’ enigme sans fin.
On the 15-meter-high walls of these large reinforced concrete cubicles, the most representative works of Salvador Dalí are projected, from The Persistence of Memory to the Atomic Leda. The public can contemplate, from some footbridges located on the water, the soft clocks, the portraits of Gala or the surreal apartment inspired by the face of Mae West. He sees it in detail in the projections, but also in the reflections in the water. The darkness and the Pink Floyd soundtrack that accompanies the images create a unique sensory atmosphere, devised by Gianfranco Iannuzzi, a pioneer of immersive exhibitions.
This proposal, created with the collaboration of the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, from Figueres, can be seen in Bordeaux until January 7, 2024. During this time it is accompanied by another immersive, simpler creation, titled Gaudí, architecte de l ‘imaginaire , which also allows a visual journey from Park Güell to Casa Batlló, with stops at La Pedrera and the Sagrada Família.
Dalí is thus reunited with Gaudí, whom he vindicated from a young age when the artistic world had marginalized him for his baroque style and leaned towards the rationalism of Le Corbusier. But Bordeaux also has a place in Dalí’s biography. At the end of the summer of 1939, when the war between France and Germany broke out, Dalí and Gala had to interrupt their vacation at the Grand Hotel de Font-Romeu because it was requisitioned by the army. So they decide to find a place far from the borders and settle for nine months in Arcachon, a town famous for its oyster production and its gigantic dune. During this time, his visits to Bordeaux are frequent, just 50 kilometers away, to see friends, to do business or to go to the famous restaurant Le Chapon Fin, which is still preserved today with its characteristic rock walls with stalactites, which sometimes Dalí must have evoked some corners of the ornate façade of the Naixement de la Sagrada Família. In this period he paints his well-known oil Two pieces of bread expressing the feeling of love.
Dalí stayed in this region until June 1940, when the Nazis occupied Paris. Thanks to the efforts of the Portuguese consul in Bordeaux, Aristides de Sousa Mendes, he then obtained a visa to escape, first to Portugal and then to the United States. He leaves hastily, like other friends of his, such as Marcel Duchamp or Leonor Fini, leaving work in warehouses and workshops.
The immersive exhibition and the accompanying texts – inexplicably – ignore these links, but take a comprehensive tour of Dalí’s work. They begin by explaining his relationship with Cadaqués and the project for the Teatre-Museu de Figueres, and then they evoke his work, from cinema and photography to jewelry and naturally his pictorial facet. The first surrealism, double images, the atomic age, Gala, religious painting and neoclassicism parade along the walls of these bunkers.
Gianfranco Iannuzzi, with more than thirty years of experience in immersive projects, had presented this one by Dalí, with some stage changes and adaptations, first in an old quarry in Provence, and now also in Amsterdam and Seoul, and from September it will go to Tokyo. “Dalí and his surreal world lend themselves especially well,” Iannuzzi explained to this newspaper. His objects and characters float in space and when you extend it beyond the canvas they give a lot of play. I think that Dalí would have adored this immersive world, he who had already been interested in performances, in experimentation, in science, in optical effects”. One of the surprises for the viewer is the music of Pink Floyd. “People who come to Bordeaux find themselves with a personal reading. I sensed that if I put together two geniuses, music and painting, that would work, and the truth is that the public has reacted very positively. A dialogue is established between them, there is like an echo, and even the lyrics of some songs, like the one that reminds us of a young girl, refers us to the boy Dalí in a sailor suit looking at his sister”.
This year it has been possible to see immersive proposals on Dalí from other companies and with different formats in Barcelona, ??Madrid and the United States. “Now immersive projects are in fashion –says Iannuzzi–, because it is very easy to project images onto large walls, but what is said and what is done is important. Quality and respect for the work is important. I came to Figueres and Cadaqués about ten times, to get to know the landscapes and document myself”.
