“I could have taken De Chirico or Ernst, but no one was as imaginative and extravagant as Dalí”.
Alfred Hitchcock
This Wednesday, April 13th, 2022, the exhibition “SPELLBOUND - Scenografia di un Sogno” (“SPELLBOUND - Scenography of a dream”) will be inaugurated at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore alla Pietrasanta located in the historic center of Naples.
The exhibition will be presented by The Dalì Universe and curated by Mr. Beniamino Levi, President of The Dalì Universe, in collaboration with Phantasya Communication directed by Roberto Pantè.
Around sixty authentic Salvador Dalí works, including sculptures of various sizes, illustrations, glassworks, furniture, and the Universal Tarot, will be exhibited in the spaces of the basilica church dedicated to the Virgin, which overlooks the little square called Piazzetta Pietrasanta.
“SPELLBOUND - Scenography of a dream” will give the opportunity of admiring eleven Salvador Dalí museum sized sculptures, a selection of smaller-sized museum sculptures and surrealist furniture, together with Salvador Dalí monumental sized sculpture Persistence of Memory.
Amongst the works belonging to the Surrealist Furniture, the visitors can admire the Mae West Lips Sofa, the result of the collaboration between Dalí and Edward James. The Daum artworks, one of the most interesting collections in the world of coloured glass sculptures, coming from the artistic collaboration between Dalí and the prestigious French glassmakers Daum Cristallerie, include Vénus aux Tiroirs and Vert d'Espagne.
The centrepiece of the exhibition will be the spectacular monumental painting Spellbound, the result of a unique collaboration between Alfred Hitchcock and Salvador Dalí.
In 1945, Hitchcock commissioned Dalí to create the monumental painting Spellbound (5 metres by 11 metres) which featured in the movie of the same name, with cinematic acting legends Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck.
Spellbound (1945) was one of the first films to deal with Freudian psychoanalysis. The painting was used as the background to the filming of the Spellbound dream sequence which vividly captured the illusory nature of the subconscious state, where reality becomes embellished with suppressed thoughts and the hidden workings of the mind.
Dalí was a natural choice for this film because he was deeply interested in psychoanalysis as a subject, and had not only met with Freud, but had even portrayed him in previous works of art.
Dalí used his creative genius to challenge preconceived notions of reality and normality, and effectively expressed a dreamworld based around the recurring image of an eye.
As Hitchcock himself said: “I could have taken De Chirico or Max Ernst, but no one was as imaginative and extravagant as Dalí”.
“Bringing together two great geniuses, the exhibition “SPELLBOUND - Scenography of a dream” will be an extraordinary journey into the fantastic mind of Salvador Dalí and Alfred Hitchcock”, commented Mr. Beniamino Levi, adding: “the public will live a dream within the exhibition itinerary of the magnificent Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore alla Pietrasanta, one of the most interesting churches of Naples because of its history and art”.
The exhibition “SPELLBOUND - Scenografia di un Sogno” - SPELLBOUND “Scenography of a dream” will be open to the public this Thursday, April 14, 2022, and will be open until September 30, 2022.
