The Visual Art students of Grades 9 to 11 visited a joint exhibition of works by Salvador Dali and contemporary surrealist artist Sir Daniel Winn at the Shanghai Art Museum.
The Museum representative gave us a tour of the exhibit explaining the rationale and concept of the display and choice of works.
The exhibits include a selection of Dalí’s etchings and drawings, featuring Saturn, Pegasus, Medusa and other mythic figures, as well as a series of ‘Surrealistic Bullfight’ scenes. The exhibition also includes Dali’s 1973 sculpture ‘Victoire de Samothrace’. The bronze sculpture looks like a representation of the ‘Winged Victory of Samothrace’, the famed 2nd century C.E. Greek sculpture of the goddess Nike, but with a Freudian twist.
Sir Daniel Winn is a Vietnam-born artist, agent and international curator. His body of work is characterized by what he termed ‘Existential Surrealism’, the kind of surrealist art that explores the big questions: nature of human existence, free-will and divinity. The exhibition displays Winn’s large oil paintings of melted fruits and marble busts with tentacle-shaped bronze hats.
The purpose of this visit was to understand the styles of the surrealism painters and to analyze some symbols that often appear in their paintings. On the visit we were to complete tasks such as analyzing artworks, and making drawing of some of the works on display. Most people chose two series of paintings, the matador and the photo of India, and used a marker for a quick sketch. Finally, we analyzed the part of the painting we were most interested in according to the known information and searched some online, and tried to understand the historical background behind the painting and the reason for creation.
By Dio Li and Sunny Jiang