19.6.07

Dalí & Film

Hi! I am back from the realms of the Continually Assessed, having finished the taking of my GCSEs and just about recovered. It's very strange, you know, having finished them, but let's not linger on that. I shall try to make more of an effort to update this blog and not let it become a wearisome task. Emily's Internet access has been out, or so I gather from her mom.

Today I went to the Tate with my fairy godmother, who is a member, to see the Dalí & Film exhibition. One thing which I really love about the Tate Modern, aside from the fact that they more or less leave you along to gaze at the pictures for distinctive amounts of time, is that they honestly encourage students to go there. All of the collections can be viewed for free, and the exhibitions are free for under-12s. I am sure that they used to be free for under-18s, as I definately didn't pay to see Frida Kahlo, but the website suggests that there is merely a £2 reduction.

The exhibition itself was really a pleasant one to be in. This of course may be different at more peak periods (we were there at lunchtime on a week-day) but today it was relatively empty. The rooms are large and the spaces between the pictures managed the usual feeling of tight claustrophobia to be omitted this time. Compared to the Hogarth at the Tate Britain, say, it was actually a nice place to be in.

There are 14 rooms, 3 or 4 or 5 of them showing films. The exhibition includes his paintings and a couple of sculptures at the beginning, with all of the usual lot: The Persistance of Memory, The Invisible Man, the lobster telephone, and Sphinx Embedded in Sand. As you move into the exhibition its subject reveals it self, Dalí's relation to film and cinema becoming clearer. A couple of particularly interesting rooms showed plans for a film which was either not made or not completed (I forget which) and also a series of story boards for an animation which was. This animation, not finished until 2003 (obviously after his demise) had been a collaboration with W. Disney (yes, that's the one) that was as a series of images, resembling Fantasia (which quite frankly I never got, but I quite liked this one).

They show the dream sequence, lasting merely 2 minutes, from Alfred Hitchcock's 'Spellbound', which I really enjoyed watching, as it combined aspects from the drifting lands of Dalí's surreal worlds (which are seen at the beginning of the exhibit, before the film stuff - I guess it gets it into your head) as well as employing dramatic cinematic effects. What was funny was that my godmother, a film director and scriptwriter, were examining the pictures and I was talking about the mystery they held, which I reckon is due to the light. You have a lot of drifting currents of air, very soft light, very mysterious, and then suddenly, often towards the centre, a figure with an extremely sharp outlined shadow, in immediate contrast. And yet the source of light in the paintings is not clear. Emily, my godmother, told me that in cinema it would be impossible to create that effect as there would have to be a very strong light shining on the object in question, a strong light which was absent from Dalí's scenes. And yet, in the film, this was achieved - or at least, the illusion of it.

One note - I guess I've never seen any of his pictures in the flesh before. I was surprised, shocked even, at how small they all really are. I don't know why so shocked, but I was expecting canvases four, five, six times the size at least. But there you are.

All in all and exhibition worth seeing, I think, even if you're not an extraordinary fan of Dalí. I was aware of his relations with film, and Hitchcock; I thought that he had designed film sets, perhaps a collaboration with Elsa Schiaparelli, who got him as well as several other surrealists to design her a couple of dresses. There is a lobster dress, for instance. But this takes a slightly different angle to the usual stuff you normally see about him, which was refreshing. Yes, worth seeing, even if you're just looking for a comfortable screening of Un Chien Andalou.


Information on the exhibition can be found on the Tate Modern website: click here

And more info on the Tate Mod., including visiting information (get the tube to Southwark and follow the orange lampposts, is my advice): on their website .

9.6.07

lovelies, no time or energy to post the clothing as art sequel right now. to hold you over until the next 'installment' here are a few links that will be related in some way to my next post:

International Dress-up Day
Style Bubble
Neet Magazine