Salvador Dali Museum in Berlin - 2009

Salvador Dali Museum

New this year, the Salvador Dali museum is a new cultural highlight for Berlin. The most interesting feature of the Dali museum and it’s over 400 works by Dahli, some never shown before, is that it contains almost nothing initially identifiable to what most of the public would recognize as works of Dali until the very end. Everyone is familiar with at least one work by surrealist artist Salvador Dali, whether it be his famous ‘The Persistence of Memory’ [a.k.a. Melting Clocks [http://educators.mfa.org/dynamic/slides/attached_file_9169.jpg] or ‘Elephant Temptation Of Saint Anthony’ [http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~fishwick/ac/2008/Dali_Temptation_of_St_Anthony.jpg], two of his works whose styles are very distinct.

The early works of Dali on display begin as completely simplistic imagery, containing no trace of familiarity and gradually unfolds to reveal the development of his later works in respect to style and imagery. With hints of lines developing into strong horizontal representation, exaggerated body parts begin to stretch and skew, imagery repetition begins with clear evidence of good and evil, as well as overtly sexual imagery and progresses further towards what the general public recognizes today as Dali.

Interesting how the accumulation of his lifetime works has been boiled down to be represented only by a few of his hundreds of pieces of diverse works while so many of his creations are capable of invoking thoughtful interpretation even from those of us who experience limited exposure to art.

While Dali’s homeland is not Germany, The Dali Museum in Berlin is definitely a must see for those interested in art and whose foreseeable future does not find them in France, Catalonia, Spain or Flordia, USA; other locations of Dali Museums housing large collections of his work.