Links? Ideas? Dalí or Freud? The
connection between two masters,
of their own production
Like everything, it's a meeting witch
starts a love story...
When you think about the type of encounter, you can have in your life, you might think about your next love, your family, your next crush or someone you really want to meet even if she or his is famous. This is what happened with Dalí.
Just after the war, the Spanish artist was shocked after his readings of one of Freud books "The Interpretation of Dreams", which just got translated in Spanish in 1922. At this moment, Europe was still reconstructing itself after the war, Salvador Dalí just moved to Madrid in the 1920s and discover the artistic avant-garde and academia at the Residencia de Estudiantes.
With the stimulation of Freud writings, the Spanish artist, which will be linked to the surrealist in 1925 while still living in Madrid. In the exhibition, you will be able to see this progress, from the creation of a surrealist like language in the 1920s to themes such as dreams, guilt, or sexual obsessions with works such as Paranonïa (c. 1935) and Swans Reflecting Elephants (1937).
In those two pictures, the spanish artist is moving into the use of double images. While playing on the motif and the view of the subject and the natural landscape, the oeuvre is become more visually complex. In a sense, viewers see what they want to see or even what they think they see.
The famous meeting - 1930 - 1938
While the artist moved with his future wife, Gala. The couple decided to move to Paris to join the surrealist group centered around the figure of André Breton.
With all of those 8 years of creation around Breton, Salvador Dalì was more then inspired by the writing of Freud. And while the artist always dreams of meeting him, Dalí decided to go to Vienna in 1937 and stay at the Krantz-Ambassador Hotel to try to meet with his star.
While the artist felt in love in Vienna, he will never meet his master. The actual meeting will occur until later, on 19 July 1938 in London, at the initiative his patron Edward James and Stefan Zweig, Salvador Dalí finally meets with Sigmund Freud.
With more than 100 works, including books, paintings, drawings and text from both artists, the exhibition, is "about telling stories, and this one is about two individuals who have impacted the intellectual landscape of the 20th century. Art and intellect, insight and passion: a story of devotion, rejection, and inspiration. Salvador Dalí's obsession with Sigmund Freud was a driving force behind his creativity – and this exhibition is the first to present Dalí's work in this context." (quote from Stella Rollig, artistic director of the museum).
Informations about the exhibition
Place: Lower Belvedere
Date: 28.1.2022 – 29.5.2022
Curators: Jaime Brihuega Sierra
Ticket: Available at the front desk of the museum
Informations about the Lower Belvedere
Rennweg 6
1030 Vienna
Phone: +43 1 795 57-0
Mail: info@belvedere.at