I had to write something quick about the Salvador Dali show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, before someone else used this corny headline (image, Dali’s “Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach, 1938).Here’s my very, very short response. Little did I know that Dali was brilliant, a genius, an iconoclast, a man before his time.
You know how when you see a museum show, it has a thesis that the curators are pushing. Usually, it is over-argued, supported just barely by the art. But not so with Dali. The art doesn’t need a thesis. It’s complex, smart, gorgeous, inventive, original, sexy, obstreperous, challenging–and Dali was a rock star celebrity artist before his time.
I don’t have time to write about it now. I’m madly packing up my kitchen for the contractors who are coming next week, and Roberta and I are driving up to New York tomorrow for the Christo and Jeanne-Claude “Gates” and the Whitney. But I just had to let you know that this is an amazing show and if you’re not in Philadelphia, you ought to come here just for this. It merits the hype.
