April 26th & 27th 2025 | DAF

Imaginations and Objects of the Future | Salvador Dali, 1975

I can't believe I did not have anything prepared for these past two days. It has juts been busy busy busy. I hope you all can forgive me, and maybe this collection of 10 pieces can make up for my absence.

I love the concept of surrealism and am frequently impressed by Dali's approaches to surrealist art. Surrealism is reflection of a truly artful mind. As of 2025, imagination is intangible and can't be hung on a wall so surrealism is as close as we can get to mind's capacity for creation.

I wanted to highlight a few of my favorite pieces in this collection. First, I love most artworks with Dali's iconic clock. I think the melting clock imagine is visually interesting and a well-done and clear metaphor. The clock is the centerpiece of the work although it's hard to determine if it's melting down the mountain or the clock serves as a road climbing up the mountain. The surrounding scene is just as interesting though with the juxtaposition of a fire ball in the front and snowy mountains in the back and the two human figures that are difficult to find the meaning in. That is what makes pieces like this so captivating, surrealist scenes are often confusing and lack definite answers.

This lobster situation also caught my eye. The use of a lobster nestled on top of an ornate rotary dial phone is so perfectly illustrated. It plays on the similar shapes and curves of a lobster and an old-school phone. The reliance of similar shapes is common practice is surrealism. It helps the surrealism feel strategic when what should be a crescent moon is depicted by something like croissant. It's objectively unrealistic and wrong, but it still suits the space and structure of the scene. Surrealism has few rules, but I do appreciate surrealist works that still ground themselves in legitimate structure. Not to mention, I love the colors. Green, Teal, Orange, Red, Purple.Lovely combination. Now, what that church in the background has to do with anything is beyond me.