Salvador Dalí
Le sommeil, 1937
© Salvador Dalí, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation/BUS, Stockholm 2009

This exhibition brings together two artists, Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) and Francesco Vezzoli (b.1971), with the idea of putting Dalí’s oeuvre in a contemporary context and looking at Vezzoli from a historical perspective. The exhibition highlights the artist role that Salvador Dalí assumed. It also experiments with the exhibition phenomenon itself, by juxtaposing a historical artist with a contemporary artist, Francesco Vezzoli.

The exhibition is divided into two rooms, separated by three doors. One set of doors is locked, as a metaphor for the unattainable. In the first room, works by Dalí from the 1930s are shown in a traditional museum setting. This period has long been considered to be the best in Dalí’s oeuvre. The second room presents Salvador Dalí the Universal Artist, who experimented in a wide range of genres.

Salvador Dalí the phenomenon is highly interesting today, particularly his use of the mass media. It is hard to distinguish between Dalí the man, and Dalí the celebrity. The rear wall presents Francesco Vezzoli’s work, which focuses on the celebrity cult. Using famous people in the way a painter would use colours on a palette, he parodies a social climate in which the announcement of an event has become more essential than the event itself.

Salvador Dalí
A Couple with their Heads Full of Clouds, 1937
© Salvador Dalí, Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation/BUS, Stockholm 2009