I'm a passionate amateur admirer of Art, as is Lane. It's one of the things we talked about all night on that first date all those years ago. Last night, we experienced one of those amazing evenings when an engaged and engaging expert on a subject communicates brilliantly the reasons for their passion - we went to the Auckland Art Gallery for one of their Tuesday Night open lates - view a full schedule
here - and listened to Mary Kisler, Senior Curator of the Mackelvie Collection and International Art, talk about Dali's
le Signal d l'angoisse (The Signal of Anguish), c. 1932/6, and his
Exploding Raphaelesque Head, 1951.
Oil on Wood, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art,
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Mary highlighted the small, icon-like size of both works, the limited colour palatte, and the movement from the thirties Surrealist classicism of
Anguish to the fractured beauty of
Exploding Raphaelesque Head.
Oil on Canvas, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
© Trustees of the National Galleries of Scotland
Mary then explained the impact of the intervening years: the rise of fascism, the destruction of Europe that Dali viewed from afar, an exiled artist in the USA, the Holocaust, and the Bomb. Fascinated by the atomic make-up of all matter, Dali explored the artistic potential of nuclear physics - an exploration that was turned on its head by the culmination of the Manhattan Project, and the devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is in encapsulated in the beautiful, sweet Madonna, with downcast eyes, her head reduced to sub-atomic particles.
As an audience, we were ordered back to the art, to examine closely and allow the stories the works tell to speak to us through time, to be, as Gaugin insisted - "either plagiarism or revolution."
The Gallery is open every Tuesday night until 8pm, until the Degas to Dali exhibition closes in early June, with art talks and docents available to assist you in your exploration and discovery. It's a perfect date night - and you can then wander into the city for dinner and drinks, as we did. Yet another great thing to do in our burgeoning city.
