30 August 2011, 10:25 Culture

“An unprecedented cult of Salvador Dali has arisen in Russia”

Interview with Alexey Petukhov, curator of the Salvador Dali exhibition at the Pushkin Museum

Interviewed by Velimir Moist close 100%

The curator of the Salvador Dali exhibition at the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Alexey Petukhov, told Park of Culture about how the exhibition was put together, what museum visitors will see, and what Dali means for Russia.

An exhibition of Salvador Dali opens at the Pushkin Museum on September 2. In contrast to shows of the famous surrealist’s limited edition graphics, which happened more than once in Russia, now 25 canvases and 90 sheets of unique graphics have arrived in Moscow - we have never had such a large-scale project dedicated to Dali’s work. The exhibits are provided by the Salvador Dali Museum-Theater in Figueres, but the exhibition will be organized according to the original Russian version. Shortly before the opening day, a Park of Culture correspondent met with the curator, senior researcher at the Pushkin Museum, Alexei Petukhov, to talk about the details of the project and its significance for the public.

— Why did the Pushkin Museum turn to Dali’s work? Was this an initiative of your museum or is there something like a cultural exchange taking place within the framework of the Russia-Spain Year?

— We quite regularly present iconic figures of art of the 20th century - among recent shows we can name at least the exhibitions of Modigliani and Picasso. So there is a craving for names, and the reputation of the museum allows such projects to be implemented. This always happens in different ways: for example, Picasso’s exhibition took place due to the fact that his house-museum in Paris was closed for reconstruction, but Modigliani’s works had to be long and painstakingly obtained from many sources. In the case of Salvador Dali, there is a “single supplier” - the museum-theater in Figueres, which is very actively involved in promoting the artist’s work around the world. The initiative for the exhibition came from us, but was greeted with great enthusiasm in Spain.

“It’s hard to imagine that for the sake of a Moscow tour, the museum in Figueres would completely destroy its own exhibition. But you can’t get away with third-rate things in such a situation. Will we be showing some really important, programmatic, iconic works by Dali?

- Undoubtedly. Let me at least mention the famous “Self-Portrait with Raphael’s Neck,” which is familiar to literally everyone who was interested in the artist’s work. There will be very interesting works from the 1930s - maybe not so well known, but truly important. The preparatory sketches and versions of works are very interesting - something that artists often leave in their personal collections and archives. There will also be works of the late period - mysterious, meditative, where Dali does not look like himself. In short, there are plenty of intriguing moments.

— What are the graphics brought? I’m asking about this specifically, since we’ve already seen enough of Salvador Dali’s circulation graphics in recent years...

— We show exclusively author’s sheets, executed by the artist himself. The selection is very representative, it covers the entire creative career of Dali - from the twenties to the seventies. Here are both individual works and sheets combined into large cycles that were commissioned from the artist in the 1940s - for example, illustrations for Don Quixote, for the autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, for Dali’s own treatises, which he was enthusiastically writing at that time . This visual material inspires respect, since the merits of Salvador Dali as a graphic artist were recognized even by his irreconcilable opponents.

— The release also mentions the mysterious word “objects”...

— There will be only one art object - a reconstruction of the “Surreal Room in the Shape of Mae West’s Face,” created in 1934. In the museum in Figueres this space is realized in life-size, but we have received a reconstruction of a much smaller size in diorama format.

— Are the promised archival photographs authentic prints of that time?

— We are talking about the family archive: from photographs taken at weddings and other celebrations, to photo chronicles of the artistic process. Joint holidays with Gala, trips, meetings, group shots - many subjects. All prints are vintage, of course. Some of them exist in a single copy. Considering the modern interest in photography, this section is no less important for us than painting and graphics.

— The exhibition designer is Boris Messerer . Will you reveal the secret of what kind of scenery he came up with?

— An attempt has been made to recreate the image of the museum-theater in Figueres. The recognizable line of the museum cornice is used as a design element, where egg-shaped objects alternate with prismatic structures. This rhythmic series will be reproduced on our colonnade. Of course, we are not talking about a literal reproduction of the surroundings there, but about the transfer of the aura.

“We can guarantee that the exhibition will receive increased attention from the public, and there will obviously be queues. However, there is a certain paradox in the perception of the work of Salvador Dali. It is generally accepted that this art is very intellectual, but intellectuals are quite skeptical about it - this was the case both during the author’s lifetime and now. In your opinion, are we dealing with “pop” or is it still “high art”?

“I don’t know where this line is drawn and whether it can be drawn at all.” The twentieth century very significantly changed the entire system of coordinates in culture. If such a figure as Salvador Dali had not appeared, he should have been invented - the figure of an artist who mixes, shuffles everything, crosses tradition with modernity, and “high” culture with mass culture. Dali was flesh and blood of his time - informational, dynamic, destructive. He constantly oscillated between tradition and innovation, between throwing himself forward and turning to his roots. This is what makes it unique, significant, and interesting. Polar opinions, of course, remain, but it’s time to analyze Dali’s activities from a historical point of view.

- What about the myth that he created about himself: “My only similarity with the surrealists is that I am a surrealist”? Many are still confident that Dali’s style is the quintessence of surrealism, although former comrades reproached him for apostasy from the ideas of the movement...

- This confusion has one author, we all know his name. Just because Dali said something about himself, the history of art does not change. A new page appears in it, connected with this statement, and the past is in no way crossed out. Surrealism arose without Salvador Dali, influenced him, accepted him - and then was absorbed and appropriated by him. Perhaps, surrealism in its original form came to a natural conclusion, so Dali easily took for his use everything that was left of it. First of all, the name itself. have disappeared from the history of art However, neither Andre Breton , nor Yves Tanguy, nor Joan Miró, nor other surrealists . Dali at one time strongly “shaken” all of them for creative ideas, then modeled his own style - and set off on his own under the flag of surrealism.

— For some reason, in Russia the attitude towards Dali’s works and personality is especially reverent, almost reverent and mystical. Although it is partly clear why: because of the “Iron Curtain” it once seemed that the true miracle of modern art was being hidden from us... Many people have lived with these ideas to this day. Do you think Dali's work is really that important for modern times?

“It seems to me that Dali always dreamed of transcending the opinions of critics and art historians and addressing the viewer directly. And he succeeded perfectly. Of course, our country in this sense is an amazing phenomenon; an unprecedented cult of Salvador Dali has arisen here. Colleagues from Figueres recently told me that there is no other country from which so many tourists come to the theater-museum there. This is a real pilgrimage from Russia. But what is reprehensible here? The artist is so open to contact and interpretation, he is so tenacious in his style, to such an extent he has the ability to set all sorts of traps - visual, semantic, eventual - that the viewer is literally doomed to find himself in his “web”. Some people cannot free themselves from it their entire lives. It seems to me that this is the secret of Dali’s relevance. Without this quality, he most likely would have remained an ordinary artist with academic training. However, he managed to step over formal barriers and become a “action man.” To make a film, to write a book, to expose oneself, and then to ask a new riddle - everything is suitable so that the personal kaleidoscope does not stop rotating. I think that the phenomenon of Dali’s popularity is far from exhausted and will continue to exist for decades to come.