June 24- November 6, 2009

(Opening Reception to be held on Friday, July 10, 2009)

The Dalí Museum will exhibit this summer a rarely seen collection of 20 pate de verre glass sculptures Dalí produced from 1968 to 1984 for Daum Cristal, France. Daum is a prestigious French glass house recognized as one of the major forces for innovative glassmaking beginning with the art nouveau movement of the early 1900’s to present.

Pate de verre is ancient glassmaking technique dating back to the Egyptians over 3,500 years ago. The technique was rediscovered in the nineteenth century but was never widely used and only in small production. In 1965, Daum worked on a complete reform of chemical and technical aspects allowing the artist/sculptor to create the work themselves. The process utilizes the “lost wax method” of casting, the same process used in bronze foundries. The artist’s original sculpture is reproduced in wax, a refractory mold is cast, and when the mold is hardened the wax is heated and drained from the inside.

Daum commissioned a select number of famous sculptors, designers, and artists to design special limited editions sculptures for their company in 1965. The collaboration between Daum and Dalí took place in 1968 with Fleur du mal. Dalí, always interested by the latest innovations, was so enthralled with the transformation of the pate de verre glass in translucence and brilliance that he produced four more designs in the same year. Dalí continued to work with Daum with successive sculptures for over 20 years. In Portemanteau-monte, 1971 Dalí utilizes the wax-like appearance of the glass to reproduce his iconic image of a limp watch draped over a metal coat hanger based on his 1931 painting, The Persistence of Memory. Dalí’s fascination with the Venus de Milo dates back to 1936 when Dalí cut six drawers into a model of the famous nude of Aphrodite from antiquity. Dalí revisit’s that theme in Le désir hyperrationnel, produced in 1984. Dali was originally inspired by Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic interpretations of dreams which were the tenets of Surrealism. The drawers or as in the glass sculpture the head and torso may represent areas of the unconscious which only psychoanalysis is able to penetrate. Dalí immortalizes old obsessions but also engages in a new dialogue with the modern medium of pate de verre glass.

Traces Gallery - check back for exhibition dates

Mabel Palacin, a mid-career Catalan videographer, was commissioned to create video projections which reflect her interpretations of Dali, the museum, its setting and the collection. Mabel Palacin’s recent video work grew out of her earlier interest in photography where she made large scale black and white images suggestive of film stills and celebrity photography in the tradition of Dali’s celebrity portraits as seen in Dali and Mass Culture. Curated by William Jeffett; organized by the Salvador Dalí Museum.

This exhibition is sponsored by Season Sponsor Progress Energy and made possible by SEACEX and the Generalitat of Catalunya.

Dalí in AUSTRALIA

Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire

13 June – 4 October 09

National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia

The exhibition is drawn from the holdings of the two largest collections of Dalí in the world: - the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí in Figueres, Spain; and the Salvador Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, Florida, USA.

From his birth in 1904 until his death in 1989 at the age of 85, Salvador Dalí’s life spanned almost a century of dramatic social and artistic change. A full retrospective, the exhibition will comprise more than 200 works in all media including painting, drawing, watercolour, etchings, jewellery, sculpture, fashion, cinema and photography. It will trace the genius of Dalí from his earliest years as a 14-year-old Impressionist painter, to the final paintings, addressing science and physics, created when the artist was in his seventies.

Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire is a kaleidoscopic and panoramic exhibition that will surprise and delight visitors as it explores the life and art of one of the most colourful and influential figures of the twentieth century.

An exhibition from the collections of the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, Spain and the Salvador Dalí Museum, St Petersburg, Florida, USA.