please don't squeeze the

ahhhhhhh damn
too late!


the city of st petersburg, fla is host to one of the most extensive collections of dali art in the world. recently the museum moved all of their treasures into a much ballyhooed and fundraised new campus where the art will be protected from even category five hurricanes. this is important when you're on the waterfront in florida-- even if no hurricanes have hit the burg since 1930 something.   i'd google it but the point is, the odds must be narrowing so it's good they built this stormproof house for the works of the father of reality tv.   the plain  concrete square  bursts  into glass bubbles  that flow around the structure . on the  bay side  the bubble goes up  3  stories


the design is supposed to enhance the works of the mad pioneer of personality cults. still trying to decide if dali is  smiling  down from  the halucinogenic toreador or is turning in his grave. i think he'd like the marketing

the bubble is   the outside wall  of the groundfloor entrance admission/ gift/ coffee  shop. you must navigate the gift shop to pay .    both cheap and  expensive replicas of portions of dali's paintings are  marketed  along with local  pizza and coffee. the  rock, a nod to  dali's  catalan spain ,  is a fountain of  youth which was dry the day i visited. busted pipe or tease?

the mirrored glass adds a touch of surrealism when you walk by them.

round the corner and you encounter  the signature dali stache. the perspective  machine wasn't working .

portside facade.  this faces the st pete marina . note the peristence of memory  inspired melty bench in the  foreground. also, if you sit on the  bench carved  into the rock in the  background(a donator's plaque adds  the right sponsorship  note) you can see your   reflection  in the second story windows

 

and the view from the  top of the large bubble of the bay is classic.  this was taken on the third floor landing of the helical stairway  which leads  to the galleries. the  suspension struts are not so  intrusive in person. 

but about those galleries. i felt squeezed, overwhelmed, poked in the face with a surrealistic knob on a stick. the loss of the former house's two story vantage point over the gigantic halucinogenic toreador, Galacidalacidesoxiribunucleicacid and discovery of america is sorely felt. these gargantuans, formerly displayed together in a large viewing area where you could see them at different levels are now crowded into their own separate alcoves. the head of lincoln at twenty meters is almost lost in the crowds that stagger and shuffle for space between paintings packed like sardines on the walls. the main loss i feel in the new house is lack of white space. viewing so much dali at once requires time to contemplate the messages, colors and images . the former galleries had this space. you wandered from painting to painting, with the persistence of the last in your head until you encountered the next. no time or space for that in the new house. it's almost as if they purposely designed it for herding. it was hard for me to get lost in his paintings as i have previously been able to. in the final analysis for this viewer, too much attention was paid to the building and monetizing, not enough to the actual display of the art. an average experience. i don't think dali would have liked that characterization.