Teatre Museo Dalí, [Or, I like writing on trains]

Some places make me wish I were just a brain attached to a pair of eyeballs, floating around unsupported like a little baby flying saucer, for the sole purpose of seeing, processing, memorizing, saving for later. Museums, particularly art museums, make me feel this way. After an hour or two, bodily needs begin to infringe on my experience--backache, sore knees, empty stomach, full bladder--and I just can't concentrate on the art anymore. [I think this might be the perfect metaphor for the state of the relationship between my mind and my body right now]. Furthermore, other people bodies become even more annoying than one's own, simply because of their bulk getting between you and what you're trying to look at. Huh. Poetic.

Anyway, the Dalí museum in Figueres (his hometown) is such a place. A place with the potential to blow my mind all the way to Saturn and back, somewhat robbed of its oomph by a long journey, long lines, and too many underwhelmed French schoolkids. Dalí designed the place himself, using an old theater building, and somewhere inside is his tomb. I may have been staring right at it, for all I know, without realizing, due to information overload. But not written information--there is no structured walkthrough of the Dalí museum, no explanations accompany any of the works. You're supposed to figure it out yourself. Lucky for me, I read a little before coming, so I knew that the giant mural on the ceiling of one of the rooms represented Dalí and Gala ascending to heaven with their feet extending gigantically down toward the viewer.

 

For some reason, Gala didn't merit arms, or a face, which I thought was strange, since she was so important to Dalí and integral to his work. She is represented by a crutch in many paintings (or so says Rick Steves) because Dalí depended on her for emotional support, and so on...not to mention the dozens of portraits of her he did.  But I think my favorite part of the collection might have been the video installation of Dalí's collaboration with Disney, the animated film "Destino".  Unfortunately, I kept remembering Dalí's questionable taste in politics... I guess that kind of goes well with Disney's sometimes unsavory business practices. But the work itself is so remote from these things that it's easy to appreciate on its' own merits. For me, Dalí is the complete epitome of perfect technical expertise combined with beyond-original ideas. Not only could he paint photo-realistically, he never did anything boring. I should be so lucky.

The two hour train ride back to Barcelona was a good chance to reflect on everything I saw and make some notes. The ride there was a little stressful (I almost always worry that I'm on the wrong train until I arrive at the right destination) and very long, but coming back gave me a chance to sit at my own little fold out table, look out the window and doodle. A quite seat on a train can be like a miniature, temporary office, and when you have nothing else to do for 2 hours except read or listen to music, it can be an excellent place to think, or even work. Maybe I would get more stuff done if I just rode trains back and forth all the time. Now that would be pretty surreal.