Take a walk thru a Salvador Dali park at Jekyll Island, GA

Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island, GA, April 12, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island, GA, April 12, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island, GA, April 12, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island, GA, April 12, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island, GA, April 12, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island, GA, April 12, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island, GA, April 12, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island, GA, April 12, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island, GA, April 12, 2022/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), The Persistence of Memory, 1931, Museum of Modern Art

"Driftwood Beach" at Jekyll Island, Georgia is “consistently voted one of America’s ‘Ten Most Romantic Beaches.'”

Huh?  

Were the voters wearing blinders?  This is a "romantic beach"?  

I guess if you'd like a walk in a park by Salvador Dali like, maybe, in his The Persistence of Memory, it's fun!

Rather than “Driftwood Beach,” this is “Deadwood Beach,” since it’s piled up with…you guessed it, DEAD WOOD.

For fans of surrealism, this is a beach walk on a beautiful island through big dead hunks of gnarled wood which lay on the shore with their limbs splayed and tall dead  branches which extend towards the sky and cry "help me!" 

Ladies and Gentlemen, it's another example of what climate change has done.

The way it was explained to me (twice):  The encroaching ocean spray kills the trees which eventually topple over and lay in the sand, more wreckage from human practice and ignorance. 

That it's a lesson in the mistakes humans make is a good reason to recognize these tree skeletons, a sad example of human mistreatment of our home, our vessel, our Earth, leaving behind a venue of ghosts, nature's cemetery of tombstones which originated in the ground below.

This is romantic?  And celebrated? 

Why Mother Nature enabled these trees to grow nearer to the shore, susceptible to ocean waters, is a mystery, but the creation happened long before humans took hold and drove waters closer inland.

Today's reality does not conform with the colorful image marketed to visitors who come in droves to see nature’s "art" on the beach.  

Tiptoe through a Salvador Dali painting if you like, and have a Halloween wedding while you're at it.  Plenty of props abound in this land where monsters roam.

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Philadelphia's surrealism show closes March 2

Enrico Donati, The Evil Eye, 1947, Philadelphia Museum of Art. This is a new addition to the collection and is not as large as it appears here. (See below.) Photo by Patricia Leslie

For all D.C. surrealist fans, the City of Brotherly Love just up the road a bit is well worth a rush trip this weekend to see The Surrealists:  Works from the Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

It closes March 2 which, on the first Sunday of the month,  happens to be "Pay What You Can Day."

It's not a big show, just three galleries, but the art is more than enough to keep your mind occupied long past your exit from the museum.

A better perspective from the floor of Enrico Donati's 1947 The Evil Eye. On the left wall is label copy.  Surrealists were intrigued by "the eye" and often made it their subject, portending more government spying. Would this not make a good illustration for the NSA? Or Google? Photo by Patricia Leslie

Oils, photographs, sculpture, furniture, printed materials, rare books, and clothing, all from the museum's collection, are represented in 100 creations by 50 artists who explore their subconscious minds, dreams, and fears.  They made visual, the unconscious; real, unreality; and they exaggerated. 

Valentine Hugo, Dream Painting (Playing Cards and Lotus Blossoms), 1935, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Curator John Vick led a tour and said the surrealists revolted against traditional names and values and practiced their own personal styles. The movement "about diversity, difference, and individuality," became "a real driving force in Europe" in the 1920s, spanning the aftermath of World War I, the entirety of World War II. and the Spanish Civil War (July, 1936 - April, 1939).

What would a surrealism show be without a Dali? Not a surrealism show.  This is a close-up of Salvador Dali's Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War), 1936, Philadelphia Museum of Art/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Vick said it was Philadelphia's "first exhibition [where] we've been able to feature our surrealism collection in a comprehensive format." 

The show unfolds chronologically and geographically as artists fled Paris and Europe for New York, joining thousands displaced by World War II.

Not all the names are familiar (Pierre Roy, Eli Lotar, Esteban Frances, Wifredo Lam) but most are well known:  Joan Miro, Kay Sage, de Chirico, Giacometti, Max Ernst, and hometown boy, Man Ray. Some of the works have never been shown.

Curator Vick said Picasso never really joined the trend, being "slightly outside" of it, however, two of his are thrown in for good measure (Bullfight, 1934, and Head of a Woman, 1937). (Picasso is a draw.)

Salvador Dali painted Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) in 1936 when the Spanish Civil War broke out, when he witnessed his country torn apart by bloodshed.  The label quotes him describing  Soft Construction as "a vast human bodybreaking out into monstrous excrescences of arms and legs tearing at one another in a delirium of auto strangulation."  The surrealists were fascinated by and often portrayed the desecration of the human body, especially Dali.  (Who would have known?)

 Salvador Dali, Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War), 1936, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Many consider surrealism art to be anti-feminist.

In her self-portrait, Birthday, named by her future husband, Max Ernst, Dorothea Tanning paints herself as a sex tool, grabbing her skirt, clothed in a robe of human bodies.  Pretty, huh? At the same time she reaches for a door leading to a long hallway of open doors (an escape or a prison?). Her expression exudes self-doubt and sadness.  What do you see?

Dorothea Tanning, Birthday, 1942, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The show contains violence, including violence against women (I could not locate it or them), torment, self-destruction, and exorcism of demons. 

Maybe it will help exorcise your demons when you see theirs and realize yours aren't so bad, after all.  The artists intended to shock, said Mr. Vick, and they still do today.

When: Now through March 2, 2014.  The museum is open every day except Monday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., and Wednesday and Friday until 8:45 p.m.

 

Where: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia 19130

Admission: "Pay what you wish" on Sunday, March 2.  Customary prices are $20 (adults); $18 (seniors; 65 and over); $14 (students and youth, ages 13-18); free (children, under age 13); and members, no charge.

Getting there from Washington: Train, plane, bus, or car.

 

For more information: 215-763-8100 or visitorservices@philamuseum.org.


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Surrealism at the Smithsonian

At the Smithsonian Associates’ recent presentation on “Surrealism,” the Institution’s representative described Judy Pomeranz, the evening’s featured speaker, as one of its favorite guest lecturers in art.

Ms. Pomeranz is an attorney, a freelance writer, and an art aficionado and clearly one impassioned by art, but I suppose it was information from a professional I was seeking rather than art commentary which was delivered.

I wanted to hear the “why,” the “how come,” and analysis which form the basis for Dadaism and Surrealism, but I heard little of it at the lecture. More of the history of these two movements would have been desirable.

World War I, its death and horror gave birth to Dadaism, Ms. Pomeranz said.


What connected Dadaism and Surrealism? How are they different? Little explanation was offered other than Dadaism (the name came from where?) began as a completely absurd movement whose artists rejected all tradition as they responded to the War. When it became too mainstream, Surrealism took over around 1922, Ms. Pomeranz said. (A definition of each with contrasting examples would have been welcomed.) If she included criticism it was so mild it was hidden.


Man Ray, Marcel Deschamps, Giorgio De Chirico, Magritte, Joan Miro and lots of Salvador Dali were the highlighted artists whose works were shown. Since just a third of the paintings were familiar to me, how can I complain about lack of satisfactory content?

But I do. Others may have felt the same since several left before Q&A ended. Of all the educated and trained art critics in this town, why isn’t one of them delivering lectures?

Lecture specifics:
Cost: $30, SA members; $40, others
Average attendee age: 55
Number who attended: 60 approx.
Location: Ripley