Curator, Caitlin Ryan: This is The Little Theater by Salvador Dalí.
As you look at it head-on, it may seem to be a painted canvas, but the more that you look and as you move your body in relation to the artwork, you realize that it is in fact three-dimensional. Dalí painted eleven glass panels, placed one behind the other, and lit it from the back, to create depth. The stage-like framing resembles the kinds of framings used in Optical Theater, this early form of projection-based animation that Dalí remembered from his childhood.
Optics also are part of a larger Surrealist preoccupation with the blurring of the real and the imagined. There are these moments that you can't quite figure out. On the left, you see the red shoe hanging from this long, thin spoon. An arm reaches out from behind a shrouded, statue-like figure with an oblong object balanced on its head. And toward the middle of the composition, you'll see small figures riding bicycles who balance similar objects on their heads. You might be tempted to search for relationships between the figures. There's a desire to make a story. But it really resists that sense of a coherent narrative.