The AMOY Art Museum of Xiamen, the port city located on the south-eastern coast of China, hosts the exhibition “Fantastic Dalí” organised by the Dalí Universe and Dalí Paris, in collaboration with Moao Art (Shenzhen Mao Industries Company Limited) founded by Mr Han Shiying.
With an area of 655 square metres and heights reaching 9 metres, the internal environments of the art museum of Xiamen provide the perfect backdrop to show the museum-size sculptures designed by Salvador Dalí, offering the spectators a truly fantastic visit.
The exhibition “Fantastic Dalí” presents about 130 works of art, including bronze sculptures, surrealist furniture, gold works, coloured glass paste sculptures, etchings and the universal tarots.
The variety of works exhibited has been specially chosen to offer the visitor the possibility of understanding the multi-faceted aspects of the Catalan artist, inside an evocative setting.
The museum-size sculptures of the Dalí Universe Collection that Mr Beniamino Levi, President of the Dalí Universe started collecting in the Seventies, following his meeting with Salvador Dalí, include the Persistence of Memory, Saint George and the Dragon and Woman Aflame.
Along with the museum sculptures, some smaller artworks are exhibited that Dalí created to illustrate his favourite themes and iconographic images. The sculpture Rhinoceros dressed in lace, that Dalí conceived in 1956, is a homage to the rhinoceros as a “cosmic” animal.
Amongst the works belonging to the gold artworks corpus, the visitors can admire the Mafalda Davis Cutlery Set, the result of the collaboration between Dalí and the extravagant designer Mafalda Davis. 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 Anti-Fleur, Cyclope and Oeil de Pâques.
Dalí's rich surrealist iconography is also exhibited thanks to the extraordinary illustrations that the Master of Surrealism created during his lifetime. The exhibition “Fantastic Dalí” presents a selection of ten illustrated books from the Dalí Universe Collection.
The spectacular artistic creativeness of Dalí can also be admired in some of the collages and gouaches of the series of universal Tarots that Dalí created in the Seventies.
A part of the Dalì Universe collection is exhibited in the exhibition area “The Skyland” where it will be possible to admire the work of art Mae West Lips Sofa, the world famous surrealist object that Dalí created by taking the lips of the actress Mae West as reference.
In conjunction with the “Fantastic Dalì” exhibition the monumental-size bronze sculpture Nobility of Time, which illustrates the characteristic Dalian symbol of time in bronze, has been installed opposite the shopping mall Paragon Famous Center of Xiamen.
Dalí's famous soft watch, like a soft drape, rests on the trunk of a tree and with an overall height of almost 5 metres, dominates the square in front of the shopping mall.
During their visit to the “Fantastic Dalí” exhibition the visitors will be invited, within the museum itinerary, to celebrate the genius of surrealism, the man who said: “The difference between the Surrealists and me, is that I am a Surrealist”, thus obtaining an all-round perception of the Catalan artist.
From bronze to glass, from paper to gold, the “Fantastic Dalí” exhibition, in the AMOY Art Museum, sheds light on the vast range of materials that allowed Dalí to transfer his extraordinary talents into art, showing an itinerary that opens the eyes to the Dalinian Universe.
The exhibition “Fantastic Dalí” was inaugurated on Saturday 12 September 2020 and may be visited until Sunday 6 December 2020.
