Exhibits

In this free exhibit at The Dalí, Leonora Carrington: Writer, Painter, Visionary is an introduction to the remarkable life of Leonora Carrington, a Surrealist artist, sculptor and writer whose work deals with the visionary, the fantastic and the occult. Carrington produced more than 2,000 paintings and authored several notable written works. The exhibition will highlight Carrington’s personal life, her time as a painter and her written work.

This exhibition brings together approximately 100 rarely seen works on paper from The Dalí Museum’s permanent collection. Spanning the entire length of Dalí’s creative life, from 1916 through 1974, the exhibition provides insight into the artist’s creative process as seen over a variety of media, including pencil, pen, charcoal, watercolor, gouache, and more. Included in the exhibition are two new surrealist acquisitions by The Dalí Museum — the ballet-related portrait of King Ludwig for Bacchanale and the frontispiece The Disappearing Face as well as many recently-conserved works on view for the first time in over three decades, which are rarely displayed due to their delicate nature.

The Shape of Dreams explores 500 years of dream-inspired paintings from the 16th to 20th century, demonstrating how artists throughout time have depicted a profound yet common phenomenon of human experience — the dream. The exhibition will examine how Western artists have depicted dreams for very different audiences throughout time, exploring the continuity and disconnections between the past and present.

Paul Éluard: Poetry, Politics, Love explores the world of the most celebrated and idealistic of all surrealist poets, Paul Éluard. Known as “the Poet of Freedom,” Éluard helped found Surrealism, the French art movement whose poetry celebrated dreams, love and freedom. The exhibition has three sections: one exploring his transition from surrealist poet to communist poet, one focused on his love of poetry and the significant loves of his life, and a final section presenting several examples of his poetry from various periods of his career.

The Visit by Yamandú Canosa presents the work of Uruguayan-Spanish artist Yamandú Canosa (born 1954). Through the exhibition, Canosa creates a contemplative dialogue between Surrealism and contemporary art. In the words of the artist, “The exhibition is intended as a visit that contemporary art pays to the house of Surrealism. One of the great legacies of the surrealist movement is its aesthetic complexity. This is confirmed by its permanence in today’s art. Surrealism is about an attitude, not aesthetic formulas: it is a way of looking at and relating to experience”.