Works by one of the most iconic figures in art history, Salvador Dali, will take centre stage in an exhibition at the Conference Hall in Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) from Feb. 6 to Apr. 22. Titled ‘Salvador Dali. The Memories’, it is hosted by Alpha Soul, an art and culture development company based in the UAE and sponsored by Emirates NBD. It showcases original works by the master - a first for the region and is a milestone for the Middle East art scene.

It features lithographs, photographs and original paintings created by Dalí in his widely regarded timeless style, sourced from private collections from around the world.

One of star pieces will be ‘Shower of Jasmine’, an exclusive oil on canvas painting that was first unveiled to the world in 1954 in New York City at Carstairs Gallery. It has since only been seen in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at Museu Nacional de Belas Artes. It has been kept in a private collection since and the Dubai exhibition will bring it to public view for only its third time ever.

The show will reveal the spontaneity and fertile creativity of Dalí. “My philosophy is that of a man who works and plays at the same time, a man who thinks and acts, whose whole life is only the elaboration of his thought and whose whole thought is constantly expressed by the game”, said Dalí.

Besides some of his greatest paintings, photographs of the Spanish artist, taken by close friend Robert Descharnes (1926 -2014), will also be shown. The images, which were selected by Nicolas Descharnes, Robert’s son, also an expert on the life and works of Dalí and a guest curator of the exhibition, show the Spanish icon intimately working with his tools in the process of making what is now some of the most recognised art in the world.

The pictures were taken at various workshops in Europe and the US and show the mood and environment in which Dalí worked. Also seen in many of the pictures will be Dalí’s long term spouse, Gala Dalí.

Lithographs such as ‘Memories of Surrealism’ (1971) and the master’s interpretation of Spanish printmaker, Francisco Goya’s ‘Los Caprichos’, will also be on display, placed next to the original series by Goya, for the audience to experience Dali’s surrealist makeover of the original artwork.

Guest curator Nicolas Descharnes is an international expert on the life and works of Dalí. He has published and co-published a number of books on the artist, testified in court as an expert witness on fraudulent works in the name of Dali, and lectured internationally on the life and work of the artist.

Guest speaker Frank Hunter, a world-renowned scholar of Dali artworks and Director, Salvador Dalí Archives, has 35 years of expertise on Dali, which has made him the pre-eminent specialist on the idol. It has led to his work with the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres, Spain, as well as with the Salvador Dalí Museum in St Petersburg, Florida, USA.

Dilyara Kamenova, Founder and Managing Director, Alpha Soul and curator of the show, acknowledged that she was “excited to showcase for the first time such a powerful variety of the finest works of Salvador Dali to art aficionados in the Middle East”. She is also a fine art dealer and curator of cultural events and art exhibitions in Dubai.

She focuses on classical art, including Cubism, Surrealism and Expressionism. She orchestrated the Picasso and Miro exhibition at The Annex, Burj Khalifa, Dubai, which brought 10,000 visitors for a month in 2016, who saw 267 original artworks of the art legends.

She organises talks and conferences in Dubai, one of the most notable of which was that of Michael Roach, the man who sold Andin International Diamond Corporation to Warren Buffet for 250 million US dollars.

She is someone who does her homework. When faced with questions posed by Time Out, she did not miss a beat. Strong in content and fluently expressed, the answers came thick and fast.    

She did not learn art from academe – she has a background in engineering – but had a liking for it from childhood. “I met many art professionals in Italy and New York and visited museums frequently, from where I picked up the nuances”, she said.

“I like surrealism. Especially that of Dali”. She finds him different from others who have worked in the same genre. She is attracted by the paranoiac-critical method developed by Dali in the early 30s.

The p-c method (for those not in the know or who were not in the know, like myself) is a surrealist technique employed by Dali in the production of paintings and other artworks, especially those that involve optical illusions and other multiple images.

It consists of the artist invoking a paranoid state (fear that the self is being manipulated, targeted or controlled by others). After the psychological concept of identity is deconstructed, it is made the primary aspect of the artwork.

“Dali used his subconscious to transform his obsessions through surrealism”, Kamenova said. “This worked as therapy for him, since he had the ability to convert his infatuations into art”.

“We are committed to enriching the spirit of Dubai by bringing big names here”, she said. “We want to merge with the vision of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to make Dubai an art hub”.

The idea to bring images of “Dali behind the scenes” was an inspired one, since it will show his work and life from a private, privileged, angle. Robert Descharnes took over 60,000 photographs of Dali, very unique, since it shows him with his wife Gala and, among other things, how he spent his time in winter in New York or spring in Paris.

“Dali’s painterly output was less, compared to Picasso’s”, Kamenova noted. “But he worked prodigiously in book illustrations, drawings, lithographs, animated cartoons, performance designs, film and photography, costumes, sculptures, fashion and jewellery”. This is one of the reasons why lithographs find a prominent place in the exhibition.

Visitors will also be treated to a lecture by Frank Hunter, Director of the Salvador Dalí Archives, New York. “He is an expert in Dali’s graphics and prints”, Kamenova said. “He actually witnessed the making of these works and will share his views on graphics. I think people should know more about lithographs and prints”.

Finally, she thinks Dali’s surreal world will add a touch of colour and beauty to the corporate world of Dubai.