Encounters with Dali
Dali's Columbus discovering America
Life in Bishkek can be full of surprises, although, (to be honest), most of the time life simply continues is mundane progress through a series of routines, meetings and habits and procedures.
Personally, I don’t like surprises, as they mean that something is happening which we are not prepared for; a revolution, for example. Of course, most surprises are less dramatic than that and I suppose could be said to constitute, (even if I don’t really like the phrase), a pleasant surprise.
One of those came to mind recently, because today happens to be the birthday of the surrealist artist and one of the icons of twentieth century art, Salvador Dali.
I first came across Dali, (or at least his work), in Oxford. A friend of mine got a job running a shop selling posters, fine art prints, books, cards, key ring fobs and the like. It was a small shop and he ran it on his own, but needed help at weekends and offered me the job, even though I was really a bit of a “philistine” when it came to art appreciation. Still I was a quick learner and was soon able to find my way about the stock even if I wasn’t always sure about how they fit into the wide context of the history of Art.
It was in the shop where I encountered the likes of Breughel and Bosch, Holbein and Da Vinci, Renoir and Rembrandt, Munch and Klimt, Van Gogh and Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec and Picasso to mention just a few … oh … and, of course, Salvador Dali.
To be honest, I wasn’t that taken with Dali at first. Pictures of watches draped over tree branches in a desert landscape, a balloon in the form of a face pegged down in the sound, of a collection of stones or objects arranged in such a way as to represent an abstract image of Narcissus staring at himself in a pond, whilst nearby an identical arrangement appears to portray a hand holding an egg.
I had to admit that some of the paintings were quite clever, inventive, like a picture of swans floating on a pool, cast reflections in the water that were perceived as elephants. On the other hand, the general impression they left me with was that of a dream sequence, (or depiction of a nightmare), in a trendy film from the 1960′s, (in fact the directors probably drew their inspiration from the likes of Salvaldor Dali), or worse – a “trip” gone wrong (… but as I never indulged myself, this was based on hearsay).
What’s more the photos of him were not encouraging with his iconic idiosyncratic moustache and crazy eyes as he posed for the cameras.
Having said that, he was an extremely accomplished artist, a draughtsman and a visionary. My interest was aroused when we received two new posters. Both were crucifixion scenes, (Crucifixion (Corpus Hypercubus) and Christ of Saint John of the Cross) and I suppose that part of the attraction was the mathematical connotation in the imagery. Then we received three large posters: The Last Supper, The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus and the Ecumenical Council).
Apart from the sheer size of these posters, (they were the biggest that we carried and were really designed to dominate any room where they were hung), each of them was fascinating in its own right. The last supper was such a contrast to the Da Vinci treatment of the subject and, once again, there was a mathematical imagery). The other two, however, seemed to be packed with detail and you could sit and look at it for ages, and keep finding something new.
In the discovery of America, for example, I am sure I discovered an image of President De Gaulle of France bending over to tie up his shoelaces, (and no, I wasn’t on a “trip” at the time!).
Many years later when I happened to be on holiday in Florida, I took the opportunity to travel to St Petersburg on the West coast of the peninsular in order to visit the world’s second largest collection of Dali’s work in the museum there, including many of the masterpieces I had come to know from those posters in Oxford.
Little did I expect when I came to Bishkek that I would one day encounter another.
After I had been here for about four years, I was invited to a function in what is now the Metro Bar at the intersection of Prospect Chui and Turusbekova Street. Before it was a bar, it was a theater, the Tunguch Theatre; it was the city’s puppet theater and before that it was the home of the Philharmonic Society. Indeed, on the corner of the building there is still a sign which says “Theater”. The large and spacious room which now houses the main bar was once the entrance foyer and up the steps at the back of the room is the entrance to the auditorium.
It wasn’t the first time I had been to the bar, but it was the first time that I had been into the auditorium, so I took a good look round as I entered.
It was a fairly large hall with a high ceiling and was well lit. At the far end was the stage. To the right and left were raised dais flanking a large open space where, at one time, I imagine the seating would have been arranged in serried ranks. On this occasion tables were set out so that the room resembled a night club from an old film, (for example, in Cabaret), although the lighting was too good for that.
I was early and so I made my way to take a seat at a table on the dias to the right and scanned the opposite side of the room to see if there was anyone I knew, and that is when I saw it.
The wall on the other sidfe of the hall had a number of niches, and in each one there was a painting … and in one of them was a rendition – a copy, obviously – of the Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Although it was larger that the posters we used to sell, it was smaller than the original, and obviously not an “exact copy” but good enough to make me catch my breath in surprise.
I often wonder who was the artists?, who decided to place that painting there? – and why that particular painting?
Bishkek