Divina Dali

 

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.

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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.