LONG EXHIBITION: DALÍ, THE ENDLESS ENIGMA
In collaboration with the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí

In 2023, the Bassins des Lumières celebrate the incomparable and singular works of Salvador Dalí. This immersive exhibition presents more than 60 creative years of the Catalan master who, inspired by Cubism, Surrealism and Futurism, became a master of a realism meticulously applied to his painting, mixing reality with the mysteries of consciousness, fantasies and memories.

Visitors will be able to explore a themed itinerary in surrealistic and metaphysical landscapes and all the while being immersed in the artist’s amazing and highly imaginative works. Exhibited around the world (the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation at Figueres, the Dalí Museum in Florida, the Reina Sofía Museum in Madrid, and MoMA in New York), these works, which can be interpreted on so many levels, will be reunited. Displayed and brought to life on the floors and ten-meter-high walls, visitors will be able to observe every detail of the brushstrokes, lines, and material effects. Paintings, drawings, photographs, installations, films, and archive images will focus on the painter’s unique personality and quirky moustache, as well as on his obsessions with the strange and the supernatural, and his fascination with his wife Gala, his muse and collaborator.

Emblematic masterpieces, such as The Persistence of Memory, the Face of Mae West (Usable as Surrealist Apartment), Atomic Leda, and the Temptation of Saint Anthony, highlight Dalí’s immense talent as a creator of new languages and unique canvases. His inspiration comes from the great masters: from Velasquez, Raphael, Michelangelo and Vermeer to Millet. This immersive exhibition will focus on the various facets of the artist’s technique: from his initial Impressionist - and Cubist - inspired works and his mystical ones with their religious themes. Then comes his Surrealistic period and his famous work about theatre, photography, and cinema.

The entire digital exhibition will be accompanied by Pink Floyd’s soundtrack. Constantly experimenting and rejecting all rational mechanisms, these painting and music shared a fantastical visual imagination, in which obsessive visions and technical virtuosity were blended. This retrospective associated with the music of the legendary group from the 1930’s will take visitors on a timeless journey that awakens the subconscious and buried thoughts, in which Dalí’s oeuvre remains a mystery and an endless enigma.

Creative Director: Gianfranco Iannuzzi
Production: Gianfranco Iannuzzi, Renato Gatto, Massimiliano Siccardi
Graphic & Animation Design: Cutback
Musical collaboration: Luca Longobardi

SHORT EXHIBITION: GAUDÍ, THE ARCHITECT OF THE IMAGINARY
In collaboration with the Foundation Junta Constructora del Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família

"Gaudí, the architect of the imaginary" will focus on Antoni Gaudí, who was a great source of inspiration for Dalí. His works from the beginning of the twentieth century, which were initially described as whimsical and provocative, were defended by Dalí. The painter published an article entitled ‘De la beauté terrifiante et comestible de l’architecture modern style’ (‘Of the Terrifying and Comestible Beauty of Modern Style Architecture’) in 1933, which marked a renewed interest in Art Nouveau.

The immersive exhibition will pay tribute to the ingenious architect via his modernist buildings that have now been listed as UNESCO World Heritage sites. It takes visitors on a journey that embraces dreams and reality, ranging from the Parc Güell, the Casa Batlló, and the Casa Milà to the Sagrada Família.

Via an interplay of light and materials, the Bassins des Lumières will take on the appearance of hyperbolic vaults, oblique pillars, and undulating facades, and will be adorned with organic motifs and glass and ceramic mosaics. An imaginary city will be created to the sound of Gershwin’s musical curves. Visitors will be able to observe the Catalan light over a day, reflecting the spiritual illumination of the artist, who succeeded in giving the abstract artistic form.

The sun rises on the Güell Park, illuminating the visitors amidst the mouldings, columns, and The visitors then ‘walk’ through the Casa Batlló. Great revolving and spiral movements, and Art Deco forms float in space. At the end of the afternoon, the visitors ‘leave’ the Casa Batlló to contemplate its marvellous and colourful façade. But, little by little the other side of this house, also known as ‘la casa del ossos’ (‘The house of bones’), takes shape: bones, enormous tibias, giant eye sockets, and threatening forms.

This terrible imagery leads to a vesperal contemplation of the portal of the Passion de la Sagrada Família, about which Gaudi remarked: ‘Some might find this façade overly extravagant, but I wanted it to go so far as to instil a sense of fear in people (…) in order to give an idea of the cruel pain of the sacrifice’. Visitors are then taken into the basilica where they discover the four grandiose bell towers. They are then plunged into a dreamlike vision of the basilica in the evening, via an interplay of lights, reflections, and the diffuse light of the stained-glass windows: the Catalan architect’s major work is bathed in a fiery light. The sequence concludes with the sun—in the form of a rose window with a thousand rays— setting in the Bassins des Lumières.

Direction & Design: Cutback

CONTEMPORARY CREATION: INFINITE HORIZONS

‘Infinite Horizons’ is an artistic journey through a multitude of viewpoints that defy the rules of perspective. It is a work that explores the accepted notion of what constitutes a landscape, by using an algorithmic and unique vision that takes us into a world of abstraction in an infinite landscape. There, the perception of every moment opens up our imagination to new and unusual and unexplored lands.

The concept is based on the notion of a horizon of events. From a real horizon to an horizon of events generated by a black hole, other horizons and alternative realities appears. Like the creation from a raw material, the visitor emerges from the centre of a planet, through its many layers and material diversity. As we ascend, we discover a vast landscape. An infinite horizon gradually emerges before our eyes. Gradually, various forms, objects, and particles begin to levitate and hover. On the horizon, a convergence of elements creates a mirror effect and what seems to be a bridge between two parallel realities. A black hole is generated by an ultra-powerful gravitational and sucks up everything that goes near it. Matter is distorted, taking the portal to an unknown dimension, and revealing reality in an unfamiliar and unexpected way: contemplation, enchantment, exaltation, disorientation… Infinite horizons belong to those who have an infinite imagination.

Direction & Design : HKI-Hellohikimori

CONTEMPORARY CREATION: L’AUTRE JARDIN

‘An hymn to time regained.’

‘L’Autre Jardin’ is a ten-minute-long immersive digital art project in which visitors are immerged in a world of enchantment, introspection, encounters, and the poetry of Nature.

In the form of ten paintings, the visitor will follow the Ferryman as he sails with the currents, taking with him a pot in which a tree grows, sequence after sequence. Emerging from the darkness, the sailor travels across magnificent landscapes in which magical creatures grace the skies with their gentle presence. He encounters the inhabitants of these lands, who live in these awe-inspiring valleys. With his experience garnered during his journey, he finally finds a suitable place to plant his tree where he meets a Ferrywoman who has made her own way, so that it, in turn, can be part of this vast landscape, and can, in turn, take the time to live there.

Direction & Design : Niels Prayer