Dalí Miami: Showcasing the Mustachioed Mastermind

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 05:01:47 GMT

By Samantha Cardet

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Dali's "The Persistence of Memory," 1931

Gallery buffs and novices alike lined up around the block of the Moore Building in the Design District for the weekend-long gallery exhibit Dalí Miami, a showcase of the works of Salvador Dalí, the iconic mustachioed surrealist who painted the equally iconic “Persistence of Memory,” which many know simply as “the one with the melting clocks.” The exhibition of the 200-piece collection was organized by the Michael Rosen, the same CEO who brought us many of the other art shows here in Miami, including Art Basel and the Art Expo. The entire show was put together in the impressively short time span of 6 months. The three-story exhibit was filled with paintings, sketches, and sculptures ranging over the artist’s lifetime and career. From the characteristically phantasmagorical to the borderline pornographic, and everything in between, the gallery displayed the full gamut of ideas through art that marked Dalí as the bizarre icon that he was. Besides being home to the aforementioned “Persistence of Memory,” Dalí Miami also got its hands on the famous Dalí sculpture, “Venus de Milo with Drawers,” which is Dalí’s interpretation of Michelangelo’s famous sculpture Venus de Milo, except with, literally, a chest of drawers. On top of all that, the gallery featured a makeshift theater that offered a continuous showing of the collaboration between Salvador Dalí and director Luis Bunuel, a 17-minute film from 1929 called Un Chien Andalou. The show’s curator, Reed V. Horth, took pride in a certain “offness” to the entire exhibit that allegorically reflected the artist it represented – as he told BlackBook Magazine, “I was so influenced by this ‘off’ characteristic in Dalí… that’s why everything in the show is slightly off.” Along with paying homage to one of history’s art greats, Dalí Miami served the purpose of filling what BlackBook Magazine calls a, “void that is left by local museums,” because they fail to really sell and deliver the exhibits that would make Miami as important as it could be in the realm of modern and contemporary art. Horth commented that “Miami has the capability to be more pivotal in the art world,” and while there are some “fantastic private collections that are amazing,” museums must be something that is “still developing.” Hopefully Dalí Miami will be the just the catalyst that Miami’s museum world needs.