30 January 2022

Madrid - Paris - Vienna - London: The new exhibition 'Dalí - Freud' at Belvedere Vienna is a tour through Europe for the exploration of Salvador Dalí's surrealist oeuvre and Sigmund Freud's psychoanalysis

Belvedere Vienna started the new year with events like 'The Art Museum in the Digital Age' conference where speakers from sciences (art, digital media) and museums worldwide presented digital museum projects and several days ago, the Belvedere released its first ever NFT drops of Gustav Klimt's 'The Kiss' which were launched as a tip for Valentine's Day at thekiss.art. On 28 January, the museum opened the new exhibition 'Dalí - Freud. An Obsession' at one of its locations, the Orangery of the Lower Belvedere.

'Dalí - Freud. An Obsession' is the first show in the newly renovated Lower Belvedere, designed by Margula Architects as a wide open space. A soft carpet leads visitors through the psychological spaces of Dalí and Freud. Five pink islands separate the exhibition into five chapters telling two stories based on the exploration of the unconscious. On the one side, it tells about an artist who visualized the unconscious and the second thread closely spun with the first concerns a medic who developed psychoanalysis for making the unconscious conscious.

The dramaturgy of the tour through the exhibition 'Dalí - Freud' for the exploration of the two groundbreaking movements starts in Madrid in the 1920ies, when Salvador Dalí read for the first time writings of Sigmund Freud, especially to mention 'The Interpretation of Dreams', is continued in Paris, Vienna, where Dalí hoped to meet Freud, and ends with the meeting in London 1938.

Curator Jaime Brihuega explains: "For Dalí, reading Freud opened up a whole new world. Through Freud's theories, he gained an understanding of his fantasies, fears, desires, and frustrations. This experience also encouraged him to transform them into images that have become part of our art-historical heritage."

Tomorrow, Spanish King Felipe and Queen Letizia will visit the exhibition in Vienna. Tip for the ones who can't travel in the next months to Vienna (exhibition is on view until 29 May 2022): The accompanying catalog (German / English) is already available at belvedere.at/product/3033.

Image: Exhibition view 'Dalí-Freud. An Obsession', 28 January – 29 May 2022, Orangery of the Lower Belvedere, Vienna. Photo: © Johannes Stoll / Belvedere, Vienna. Exhibition architecture: Margula Architects.