Salvador

Since I have been arrived in Izmir, my eye of graphic designer is tickled by a big red minimal poster. One long black mustache and a white thin handtype. Over a big tint area of colours. Strong, nice, and quite unique in the Turkish visual landscape. Quite simply the poster of the current “Salvador Dali Zodyak” exhibition. It is rather fun because, at the same in Paris, is also presented a retrospective about the artist. I missed it but here was the way to catch up! And finally, after a few weeks, we went to the “Ahmed Adnan Saygun Sanat Merkzi” (AASSM), Izmir’s art centre, on the 9th February.

If the name of Dali is familiar to me, I have to say that I really didn’t know his work. Unfortunately, here was only showed a small part, focused on the Zodyak series. I didn’t think he was such a drawer. In fact, two kinds of work faced each other: one first more expressionist, about colour, and a second oriented on the line, black and white lithography on coloured background. I was disappointed by the quite lack of text, which let me a little perplexed. If we obviously can detect in his work some qualities, I would have been very interested by the themes behind the masterpieces, which reflection and which position in comparison to Art History.

The building of the AASSM was rather impressive, spacious and modern, which maybe accentuated the rarity of the selected canvas. Moreover, it was a long trip from Karşıyaka, and under a bad weather. So even if I haven’t regretted to come, I confess it was not so good as I thought!