The largest retrospective of Surrealism's Master is open from the last 21th November at the sixth floor of the Contemporary Art Centre George Pompidou.

     More than 200 works (paintings, sculptures, drawings, objects, books ...) along with dozens of extraordinary films (Buñuel's Chien Andalou, commercials, theatre projects, performances with an splendid Amanda Lear, television live shows in order to dismantle Piet Mondrian...) make a new and spectacular tour through the work of the catalan genius, that has been chrono-thematically ordered.

     OTB has collaborated in the general assembling, being the main responsible of the Sala Mae West, the Cinema Room (with seven white backlit Dalilips converted in a sort of lamps-sofa) and the Brain Space.

Mae West at Dalí Pompidou

This room reinterprets the one at Teatro Museo Dalí, Figueres, created by Dalí and the architect Oscar Tusquets Blanca in 1975.  During the museum construction the architect proposed the Maestro a spatial interpretation from the work Rostro de Mae West utilizable como salón located in the Art Institute of Chicago. This painting transforms the face of the Hollywood star in a room: the hair becomes a curtain, the eyes a view of Paris, the nose, a fireplace, the lips, a sofa ... It seemed very interesting to build a space that, viewed from a given point, reproduced the dalinian picture that,  in turn, represented a virtual space.

The high point of view of the painting forces the visitors in Figueres to ascend a ladder so as to reach the correct height of observation. This is the second time that the Fundación Gala has agreed to the Room interpretation. The first one for the exhibition in Palazzo Reale from Milano. Due to the fact that the Fundación demanded a interpretation and not a copy (must be taken into account that the Mae West Room is the most outstanding by visitors  from all Teatro-Museo),  Tusquets thought that a highly suggestive alternative would be not to have to climb a ladder to reach the ideal point of view. Installing a camera and a large screen in front of the sofa, visitors could see themselves sitting in the mouth of Mae West.

Weeks later, Montse Aguer, director of Centro de Estudios Dalinianos, found an interview in which the Maestro- despite the precarious technology of that time and showing his prophetic vision –did already have this resource in mind, resource that was never used in Figueres but that now, thirty-six years later, we have been able to realize. The Centre Pompidou montage improves undoubtedly the one made ​​in Milan, we have corrected small defects, it is more spectacular and true to the original painting.

OTB

Feruary 2012

Captions, top to bottom:

The Cinema Room.

The Mae West Room.

Dalí in the egg-womb.

Mounting the Brain Room.

OTB taking photos to himself in the Mae West Room.

Interviews with Amanda Lear and Commissioner Jean Michel Bouhours infront Carolinetta at Teatralité Room.