Dalí Universe, in association with the City of Vicenza and the Italian Exhibition Group IEG, is proud to participate in the fifth edition of VIOFF, the Vicenza Jewellery Boutique Show, from 11 to 14 September.
“A New Golden Way” is the watchword of this edition, especially chosen to symbolise the will of society and of the economy, scarred by the post Covid-19 crisis, to start up again with new energy and strength, indicating a new direction.
It will be the first big event scheduled after the lockdown, that will rekindle the heart of the city of Vicenza with a broad artistic and cultural offering.
The Dalí - Palladio combination was the focus and the soul of the third edition of VIOFF entitled “Golden Arts”, that was held in Vicenza last year from 6 to 8 September.
The poster of the September 2020 edition of VIOFF is meant as a homage to Italy and once again proposes the ideal meeting point between Salvador Dalí and Andrea Palladio, that characterised the last edition.
Under the arches of palazzo Barbaran Da Porto, illustrated with the use of the central perspective and the theory of shadows, techniques that Dalí, like Palladio, had studied and used widely in his works; appears the outline of a figure in the distance that reminds of the image frequently used by the Catalan artist in his paintings.
Salvador Dalí loved to portray himself inside his works and to appear in the background of the pictorial scenes, just like the figure drawn on the poster of this edition of VIOFF.
From Friday 11 September, at the Fiera di Vicenza in the space dedicated to Surrealist Universe Gold, it will be possible to admire three sculptures in multiple edition devised by Salvador Dalí and belonging to one of the most important private collections of the works of the Catalan artist in the world, the result of the fruitful collaboration and friendship between Salvador Dalí and Beniamino Levi, Italian collector and President of the Dalí Universe.
The sculptures Unicorn, Dance of Time I and Woman of Time of the Dalí Universe Collection have been selected as the significant works to show the public the symbolic wealth that the master of Surrealism has brought of the art, the Dalian obsession of time and his profound admiration for Italian classicism.
In the sculpture Unicorn, Dalí lauds his relationship with his beloved wife Gala, representing their love with the opening in the heart-shaped wall. In his autobiography, Dalí describes Gala riding a Unicorn, thus leading us to believe that the image of the Unicorn and his eternal love for Gala were sources of inspiration for Dalí.
The contrast between the soft and the hard has always been an obsession of the Catalan artist. In the sculpture Dance of Time I, Dalí upturns reality: he takes the familiar object of the watch, hard, solid and precise, and inverts its characteristics. It becomes soft and imprecise, time submits to individual thought and the clock represented seems to literally dance.
Dalí’s sculpture Woman of Time is a homage to female grace and beauty, whereas the soft watch alludes to the awareness of women that beauty ends up by fading in time. Dalí associated the symbolism connected to female charm and the concept of time in many of his sculptures and in this work, his veneration for charm, refinedness and elegance is represented in a female figure of exquisite workmanship.
Does beauty depend on time or is it likely to last in eternity?
In the City that D’Annunzio described as: “Vicenza the Beautiful, my divine, my favourite city”, Dalí Universe invites us to admire Salvador Dalí in “A New Golden Way”, discovering the brilliant, eccentric and multifaceted personality of the master of Surrealism.
Image: the fifth edition of VIOFF – poster created by Riccardo Guasco and Marina Marcolin.
