DIVINA DALI
AT
GRAND QUAY
OF
THE PORT OF MONTREAL
July 16 - October 31, 2021
This exhibition is a journey into Dante Alighieri’s the beyond world, passing through Dali’s surrealism. Thes exhibition presents more than100 works that celebrate the Spanish artist Salvador Dali as well as the Italian writer Dante. It also features Dali’s monumental work he created n 1945 that had never before been exhibited. Additionally, there are several large scale photos.
Dali’s works on display are his original watercolour illustrations of the Dante Alighieri’s narrative poem The Divine
Comedy
written
between 1308 and 1320. Allegorically, the poem represents a state of
the soul after death, including the divine justice, punishment or reward.
According
to
the Western
church's postulates established at about
those
times, both
Dante’s poem and
the
exhibition are
divided into three parts: Inferno, Purgatory and Paradiso. The Divine
Comedy
is considered to be the pivotal work in Italian literature. It helped
to establish the Tuscan language in which it was written as the standardized Italian language.
When
planning
Dante’s 700th
birthday celebrations
in
the early 1950s,
the Italian government commissioned
Salvador Dali
to
create 100 illustrations for a commemorative edition of the Divine
Comedy. They
considered Dalí’s
hyper-realistic,
bizarre, and nightmarish imagery the perfect pairing to Dante’s
visions of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. However,
the
public outcry against the commissioning of a Spanish artist to
accompany the work of an Italian cultural hero forced the Italian
government to revoke its support for the project. Undaunted, Dalí
worked with a French publisher to have 100 wood engravings (one for
each of The Divine Comedy’s verses) made after his watercolours which were completed and published in 1963. Those same original watercolours are presently exhibited in Montreal.
Divina
Dalí
offers
visitors
a unique
opportunity
to
travel
through three imaginary worlds: Hell, the Purgatory and Heaven. It
represent a return,
an
encounter, seven centuries apart, between the literary work of Dante
and
the pictorial talent of Salvador
Dalí.
The
exhibition was based
on an original idea from LaGirafe en feu. It
was
conceived
in a spirit of innovation and even
driven
by some
current
issues. It
twill allow visitors to experience a
more
intimate and often overlooked dimension of Salvador Dalí's creation
by
becoming familiar with Dante's major work Divina Commedia,
one
of the prominent
humanist treatises in literature.
This is the exhibition's premiere. It has never
been presented
anywhere else in the world. It was curated by Raynald Michaud.
DIVINA
DALÍ ON SOCIAL MEDIA
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ABOUT
LaGirafe en feu plans,
designs, scripts and produces exhibitions dedicated to the work of
Salvador Dalí. Embodying Dalí's very spirit of surprising and
creating events, it initiates unusual collaborations with current
artists; drawing on Quebec know-how and genius, without ever losing
the essence of the works of the Catalan master. Divina Dalí is
an original idea from La Girafe en feu.
Raynald
Michaud - the Commissioner Artistic
director, author, director and designer of exhibitions, shows and
events in public and private cultural enterprises. Developer of
innovative animation concepts and collaborator of numerous cultural
bodies including the Pointe-à-Callières Museum, Space for Life and
the Just for Laughs Museum. Recipient of many prestigious awards.
Visit the DIVINA DALI website.
To buy tickets.
