Dalí is a universal figure. His work and his transgressive spirit, symbolized by his iconic mustache, are world-renowned. However, the details of his life, his inspiration, his strokes, and his surrealist imaginary, which are addressed in the exhibition Dalí Challenge. You know nothing about me, are not as well known. The exhibition delves into the artist's work and life from Barcelona for four months.
Located across 500 square meters of the central Reial Cercle Artístic, the exhibition reviews 65 works by Dalí. These are digital replicas of originals located in eleven different museums and private collections, which offers the opportunity not only to contemplate them in a single space, but to do so in a large format that allows observing details and strokes that may be imperceptible in the originals, due to their size and lighting. In the exhibition, the light reaching the work is uniformly distributed, revealing all the details of the brushstrokes of the artist from Empordà. "We want people who have not seen Dalí's original work to want to do so, and those who have already done so to be able to contemplate it in detail; we want to be a complement," defends the exhibition director, Santiago Ruiz.
The exhibition reviews his most emblematic paintings with a chronological thread, while addressing events of his life and of the historical moment in order to contextualize the artist, who was marked by events such as the massacres caused by atomic bombs, which led to his nuclear mysticism.
The exhibition arrives in the Catalan capital as part of an initiative that aims to exhibit it across five continents. Barcelona is the third city to host it, after premiering in Madrid in October 2022, and after opening in May in São Paulo, where it can be visited until the end of June. The initiative, created by ArtDidaktik with the support of the Fundació Gala Salvador Dalí, has landed in the city thanks to the Barcelona production company SeedsXR, with the aspiration of being an educational and informative experience about Dalí that invites the viewer to dialogue with the artist's life and work.
The journey through the Dalinian legacy is made through an audio-story in podcast format, which guides the visitor through an exhibition where new technologies accompany replicas of the works. However, "it is not an immersive exhibition; it is a new format for Barcelona," as the exhibition director warns, in front of a video that presents Dalí as a child dressed as a sailor, a character who advances in the exhibition alongside the visitor. "The goal is to put technology at the service of the narrative and about Dalí's work and life," added Ruiz. To this end, the exhibition features technological elements such as a projection that simulates Dalí's creative process when designing his intricate jewel The Chalice of Life, and a digital game that inserts the visitor into a landscape of Portlligat alongside surreal elements from the Dalinian universe.
The exhibition is completed with a virtual reality experience, animated paintings and an audiovisual about facets of Dalí ranging from cinema to advertising, jewelry and performances, as well as a reproduction of Gala and Dalí's Portlligat studio. "Without Gala, Dalí is not understood, they are a tandem," Ruiz claimed. In fact, Dalí's muse, truly named Elena Ivanovna Diakonova, played a key role in the development of the artist's brand internationally. In fact, "Dalí's was one of the first cases of personal branding," according to the exhibition director, peppered with anecdotes about the artist that recall episodes of his life and aim for the visitor to understand his human side beyond that of a genius.