Exhibition brings iconic surrealist's works to a historic building on the Bund

The exhibition 1922 Comienzo: Salvador Dali X The Bund City Hall opened on Nov 11 at the Bund City Hall Plaza, formerly known as the Shanghai Municipal Council, home to the Shanghai Municipal People's Government from 1949 to 1955.

In 1922, 18-year-old Salvador Dali entered the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid and began his artistic journey.

The same year, the Shanghai building, located at the intersection of Jiangxi Middle Road and Hankou Road, was put into use as the headquarters of the municipal council of international settlement.

Also in 1922, Albert Einstein visited Shanghai and gave a lecture at the Bund City Hall Plaza. It was said that during his stay in Shanghai, he got the news that he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for 1921.

The hall was later listed as a Cultural Heritage Building in 1989 and, in 2015, began a decade of restorations and additions.

Running until March 10, the exhibition presents over 150 works by Dali, including sculptures, jewelry, glassworks and prints. Some of the works are making their public debut on the Chinese mainland.

"We noticed people posting photos of Dali jewelry on social media that they took in one of our seven Dali museums in Europe," says Xu Yan, CEO of Dali Universe Co in China. Founded by Beniamino Levi, Dali Universe is the managing body of the immense artwork collection of the surrealist artist.

Only a few Dali exhibitions have taken place in Shanghai over the past decades, each appreciated by art lovers in China. Some of his sculptures were displayed in the city at a major Dali exhibition in 2015, Xu recalls.

"This time, we are presenting them in a different narrative structure, new scenography, and the unique space of the Bund City Hall," Xu says.

"We are taking advantage of the historical building's architecture, and attempting to realize Dali's surrealist ideas in the exhibition design," Xu says. "We want visitors to feel like they have stepped into a dream."

With the stairways painted in hues reminiscent of Dali's palette, "visitors can feel the hundred-year-old stone walls, and experience Dali's wild imagination coming to life in his art at the same time", according to Xu, who hopes the exhibition "sparks a dialogue with your inner self".

The restored building is a symbol of the Bund's urban renewal, featuring key historical interiors, a courtyard space open to the public, and places for office use.

Born in a town in the Catalonia region of Spain in 1904, Dali was one of the most iconic surrealist artists of the 20th century. He engaged in a wide range of creative media from painting, sculpture, and printmaking to jewelry and fashion design, as well as manifesto and fiction writing.

Nicolas Descharnes, a French academic and expert on the art of Dali, compares him to Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci. "Dali was curious about everything," Descharnes says. "He would find new images and interpretations every second, always trying to mix the elements to assemble them with his paranoia ...You can't follow him because he is too quick."

Dali's contemporary and compatriot artist Pablo Picasso used to say that Dali "is like the engine of a speedboat without control".

Dali's sculptures are among the best examples of his art, Descharnes says. Sculpture is "the ultimate tool for the propaganda of his surrealist ideas because it is three-dimensional and concrete". Dali was creating his own mythology throughout his life, he adds.

Many symbols and iconography are found on the sculptures displayed in Shanghai, such as Lady Godiva with Butterflies, Space Elephant, Alice in Wonderland, and Woman Aflame.