The other day I visited the Salvador Dali exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. And I was surprised by the number of children there, given the highly sexual nature of much of his later work. And some of the children there put the five year old me to shame with their maturity, with exchanges in a kindergarten group such as this:
Teacher (leading group of about eight children around seven years old to a nude sketch): See this one? Isn’t it amazing! Look children, look at the buttocks, and the shape he’s managed to draw.
Me (thinking what the hell is she doing, these children are seven years old, this is completely bizarre): ...
Young boy (peering closely): Wow, how did he get that shading on the thigh?
Teacher (approvingly): Yes, Thomas, it’s just very light pencil strokes, see? (encouraging them to look closer, while the children all nod very seriously.)
And of course there were just the nice family groups out to enjoy some high art, like this mother and similarly young son:
Mother: Ooh, I like this one, don’t you? See how there’s the piano, and that object stuck into the side of it? What do you see the object as?
Above: The guilty picture.
Boy: Isn’t it a skull?
Mother: Is it? It could be.
Boy: It looks like it.
Mother: Hmm. (Glances over at the caption, which is concisely labelled Atmospheric Skull Sodomizing a Grand Piano) Yes...I think it is a skull. Let’s go and look at this one!
Also screening at this child friendly exhibition was Dali’s first 17 minute short film, Un chien andalou. This surrealist film, which I’m rather surprised to find has not yet been adapted into a nice children’s series, opens subtly with a woman’s eyeball being sliced open by a razor. Throughout the film, a woman is groped by a man tied to two pianos, two dead and bloodied donkeys and two priests, all to the music of an Argentinean tango, dead hands are poked in the street, a woman run over, ants burst out of hands, and much more. A few parents rushed out midway, covering their children’s eyes while making scandalised tutting noises.
Three hundred pairs of breasts and many Freudian interpretations of works containing the words “phallic” later, the exhibition was over. So there you go, a cultured and sophisticated glance into one of the great geniuses in history. Seriously though, it was very interesting.
Teacher (leading group of about eight children around seven years old to a nude sketch): See this one? Isn’t it amazing! Look children, look at the buttocks, and the shape he’s managed to draw.
Me (thinking what the hell is she doing, these children are seven years old, this is completely bizarre): ...
Young boy (peering closely): Wow, how did he get that shading on the thigh?
Teacher (approvingly): Yes, Thomas, it’s just very light pencil strokes, see? (encouraging them to look closer, while the children all nod very seriously.)
And of course there were just the nice family groups out to enjoy some high art, like this mother and similarly young son:
Mother: Ooh, I like this one, don’t you? See how there’s the piano, and that object stuck into the side of it? What do you see the object as?
Above: The guilty picture.Boy: Isn’t it a skull?
Mother: Is it? It could be.
Boy: It looks like it.
Mother: Hmm. (Glances over at the caption, which is concisely labelled Atmospheric Skull Sodomizing a Grand Piano) Yes...I think it is a skull. Let’s go and look at this one!
Also screening at this child friendly exhibition was Dali’s first 17 minute short film, Un chien andalou. This surrealist film, which I’m rather surprised to find has not yet been adapted into a nice children’s series, opens subtly with a woman’s eyeball being sliced open by a razor. Throughout the film, a woman is groped by a man tied to two pianos, two dead and bloodied donkeys and two priests, all to the music of an Argentinean tango, dead hands are poked in the street, a woman run over, ants burst out of hands, and much more. A few parents rushed out midway, covering their children’s eyes while making scandalised tutting noises.
Three hundred pairs of breasts and many Freudian interpretations of works containing the words “phallic” later, the exhibition was over. So there you go, a cultured and sophisticated glance into one of the great geniuses in history. Seriously though, it was very interesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment