I'm not mad - the art of Salvador Dali
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“The only difference between me and a madman is that I’m not mad” says Salvador Dali. A pretty subjective analysis and I’m not altogether sure that he is the best judge, but the current extensive retrospective exhibition of over 200 of Dali’s work shows us a man caught somewhere on this planet with something to say for every period of art that he passed through in his eighty odd years. Whether we understand it or not and even if we titter occasionally at the fun of it, I am sure Dali doesn’t give a toss. He has achieved his aim, he desperately wanted to be remembered.
In this exhibition there is a plethora of art with huge variations in style, format and media. Many of his middle year’s works were created almost entirely from “paranoia and irrationalism” he explains. The Art Australia magazine (1935), when Dali was first shown to a Melbourne audience, described his work disparagingly as “the solitary nightmare of Salvador Dali”. We were a narrow and judgemental lot back then. On show this time, Dali has been venerated. From his works as a naive twelve year old with a precocious talent for impressionism through to the ideologically challenged octogenarian, the works are right up there for you to judge. It is true that Dali pushed the boundaries and despite clear cleverness and mastery of technique, it remains hard to really comprehend the “why” of these artworks. Maybe that is his point.
The NGV took on a huge task to present these works to us, it must have been incredibly challenging but they have done well – long walls of red velvet cushions with small peep show glass cases with Dali’s finely crafted jewellery within, forty odd etchings spread across a wall, the photography, the experimental art, the movies he made and the set backdrops, his tiny cigarette box size homage to his muse and wife Gala, right up to the massive exploration of his impending death in Ecumenical Council at 299cm high – just some examples of his eclectic variety.
Dali was on one hand laughing at us and on the other hand inviting us to laugh at him. Albeit, he manages to impress us with his attention to detail and artistic mastery. He head-butted the critics of each era he passed through. Nothing however beats the cobweb fine strokes of his pen in his Gradiva (1938) or the glistening ringlets falling gently down the woman's back in Girl’s Back (1926) and the bizarre optical illusion created by Galatea of the Spheres (1952). Dali is a master artist, so if all Dali is remembered for are his melting clocks and the ridiculous lobster on a telephone, this exhibition will have failed at a task it has so gallantly set out to do – to show us the whole Dali.
EXHIBITION IS ON NGV INTERNATIONAL FROM JUNE 13 to OCT 4 2009