Last week a historical artistic event occurred in Beverly Hills: 12 iconic Salvador Dali sculptures arrived on display at Two Rodeo Drive in what is now the first and largest outdoors showcase of the artist’s sculptures of this kind in the United States.
The exhibit is presented by Two Rodeo Drive and Galerie Michael, with a sponsorship from Beverly Hills Conference & Visitors Bureau.The collection will be free to the public and on display at Two Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills from now through September 23, 2016.
The exhibit highlights Dali’s three-dimensional bronze monumental sculptures that are up to 12 feet tall as well as museum-sized sculptures that range in size from four to nine feet. Loaned from The Stratton Institute which possesses the world’s largest collection of Dali’s monumental sculptures, the exhibit offers the rare opportunity to view Dali’s surreal sculptures in an open environment outside of a museum or gallery setting. Each sculpture highlights Dali’s untamed imagination, offering onlookers a surreal and unique experience.
Dali Exhibit at Two Rodeo Drive was organized collaboratively by Beniamino Levi, President of The Stratton Institute and Michael Schwartz, owner of Galerie Michael, both who had personal relationships with Dali. Over the duration of the exhibition, Galerie Michael will offer complimentary docent tours of the collection on weekends at 10am, 12pm, 2pm and 4pm. The tours will begin on Saturday, June 25.
The exhibit has also partnered with Operation Smile, an international non-profit medical organization dedicated to improving the health and lives of children in developing countries with access to surgical care for those born with cleft lip, cleft palate or other facial deformities. Donations raised during the exhibition as well as a percentage of sales from purchased sculptures will benefit Operation Smile.
The following are descriptions of the pieces that will be on display this summer:
Monumental Sculptures:
- Persistence of Memory: Dalinian time is not rigid, but rather fluid. The unexpected softness of the watch represents the psychological fact that speed of time, while precise in scientific use, is widely variable in human perception.
- Saint George and the Dragon: Saint George, guardian angel of Aragon and celebrated saint of chivalry in medieval Europe, battles against heresy and evil.
- The Unicorn: The mythical creature, a symbol of purity. The sensual nature of the piece is created with the portrayal the unicorn as a phallic figure with the out-stretched woman at its hooves.
- Woman Aflame: ‘A woman’s mystery is her true beauty,’ as idealised with Dali’s use of the flames and drawers that convey the hidden intensity of unconscious desire and the mystery of hidden secrets.
Museum Sculptures:
- Dance of Time I: Dalinian time is perpetual, “dancing on”, stopping for no man, history or the cosmos. The sculpture exemplifies Dali’s relationship with time, his perception of its constricting limitations and the importance he believed to be inherent in memory.
- Dance of Time II: The fluidity and space of time is represented through constant movement and dancing in sync to the beat of the universe.
- Horse Saddled with Time: ‘Man believes he is in control of the voyage, but it is time who is the ultimate rider.’ This famous Dalinian image of the horse saddled with Dalinian time, time that controls all of man’s passage.
- Triumphant Angel: The beautiful Dalian angel trumpets his divine music, wings spread, head thrown back, sending his jubilant message to all who will listen.
- Triumphant Elephant: Exemplifies every individual’s hope for abundance and good fortune in the future.
- Snail and the Angel: A place in the Dalinian universe intimately connected with the artist’s encounter with Sigmund Freud, who Dali regarded as his spiritual father.
- Surrealist Piano: Dali animates the instrument into an animated and joyous musical piano that can dance with its legs from a woman as well as play.
- Surrealist Warrior: Roman warrior representing all victories – real and ethereal, spiritual and physical.
