OPENING HOURS: Daily from 10.00 AM (last Entry: 6.00 PM)

SALVADOR DALÍ - Over 150 works in an extraordinary exhibition – on view from May 30, 2025 at Studio F, Wiener Stadthalle.

This comprehensive exhibition is dedicated to a centennial artist who is hardly comparable to any other figure of the 20th century.
On display are over 150 works from the renowned Dalí Universe Collection, including bronze sculptures, pâte de verre (glass paste) objects, gilded jewels, surrealist furniture, and hand-signed prints. Works from this collection have been exhibited in over one hundred major museums and galleries worldwide and seen by more than twelve million people. This presentation offers new perspectives on a Dalí who, beyond his famous paintings, was active as a multidisciplinary sculptor, illustrator, and thinker.

"Painting is an infinitely small part of my personality." – Salvador Dalí

Dalí was not only a painter – he was a multifaceted artist in the truest sense: an icon of Surrealism, an alchemist of form, a virtuoso of design. His modes of expression ranged from painting, sculpture, and literature to furniture design, jewelry, and even advertising – always marked by his distinctive style, oscillating between excess, irony, and deep symbolism.

The works now being shown – many of them for the first time in Vienna – come from the private collection of Beniamino Levi, one of Dalí’s most significant collectors and the founder of the Dalí Universe. Over five decades, this evolved into one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of Dalí’s three-dimensional works.

 Focus: Dalí in the Third Dimension
The exhibition offers insight into a lesser-known side of Dalí – his sculptural imagination. Sculptures and objects where the surrealist play of transformation unfolds in all its magic. Works made of gold, luminous pâte de verre, and iconic furniture design reflect the very essence of the spirit known from his paintings – yet reimagined in new materials.

Dalí was influenced by the Renaissance masters and passionately interested in science, mythology, and religion. His "paranoiac-critical" method led to works full of hidden layers, concealed messages, and intentional distortions. He explored the unconscious, delved into his fears, obsessions, and sexuality – transforming them into a lasting visual language.

Particularly compelling are the illustrations for the series Moses and Monotheism, featuring texts by Sigmund Freud, who profoundly influenced Dalí. By applying psychoanalytic theory, a fascinating interplay emerges between psychology, religion, and surrealist art – as in the sculpture St. George and the Dragon, a central Christian narrative reinterpreted by Dalí as a surreal depiction of the eternal struggle between good and evil.

The sculpture Hommage à Terpsichore occupies a prominent place in the exhibition.
Terpsichore, one of the nine muses of Greek mythology, was considered the goddess of dance and chorus. Her presence in Vienna’s Stadthalle is more than symbolic: she embodies movement and rhythm – central elements in Dalí’s work that run like a thread through his entire oeuvre.

Some of Dalí’s most iconic paintings were reimagined by the artist himself as sculptural forms – including Atavistic Ruins After the Rain and Javanese Mannequin (1969).
In contrast, Toreador Halluciné is composed of seemingly unrelated objects that, when combined, take on new surreal meaning.

 A lesser-known but central aspect of Dalí’s work is his collection of etchings and lithographs, reflecting his engagement with literature.
His surrealist interpretations range from classics such as Much Ado About Shakespeare(1968) to the provocative and controversial texts of the Marquis de Sade (1969) – sometimes playful, sometimes disturbing, always profound.

The theme of time, a lifelong fascination for Dalí, is explored in sculptures like Profile of Time and Woman of Time.
The famous "melting clocks," which first appeared in his painting The Persistence of Memory (1931), symbolize Dalí’s unique view of time – not rigid or mechanical, but fluid, elastic, and open to personal interpretation. To Dalí, time was the “guardian of life,” and his melting clocks became a metaphor for his disdain for its constraints, as well as for the fleeting nature of youth and existence.

 The exhibition reveals Dalí’s creative versatility and the wide range of materials he used – including collaborations with the renowned French glassworksDaum Cristallerie. Dalí saw pâte de verre as an ideal medium for depicting “metamorphoses.” The gilded objects are extravagant creations made of coins, transformed into fantastical ornaments – often featuring the likeness of the artist himself and his muse and wife, Gala.
All these works explore the transition from liquid to solid, from softness to permanence – a transformation that endlessly fascinated Dalí.

Dalí’s interest in furniture design also left a mark on the world of design: the unmistakable Mae West Lip Sofa became an icon.

 Virtual Reality – Experiencing Art with All Senses
As a special highlight, visitors can immerse themselves even further in Dalí’s world through an immersive VR experience. A 360-degree journey into the mind of an artist whose imagination knew no bounds.

 A Universe of Imagination
This exhibition is an artistic labyrinth – a sensual journey through a body of work where dream and reality do not oppose but flow into one another.
Each space invites you into a world of possibilities: fascinating, enigmatic, sometimes humorous, often deeply moving.

This exhibition does not show original paintings by Salvador Dalí – but rather rare sculptures, objects, and prints from the internationally renowned Dalí Universe Collection. 

What you see here is not the “Dalí of the museums” – but the Dalí experienced as a designer, thinker, and friend of collectors.

Or, as Dalí himself might have put it:
“The original is only the beginning – I am the end.”