Alpine Summer

Many of us were excited to see the signs in the Stuttgart Hauptbahnhof advertising an exhibit of Dali's work. We arranged to buy Baden-Wurttenburg tickets and share the cost to head into Bad Cannstatt to check it out. Having enjoyed Dali's paintings for years, I was really excited to see his work in person.

One thing that immediately struck me was the lack of his most famous work. I was really anticipating the opportunity to see my favorite piece, "Swans Reflecting Elephants", or something equally as known. Instead, the entire gallery was filled with sketches and a few photographs. After charging 7 Euro (with the student discount), it seemed like some kind of cruel joke. It was at this point that I realized how modern this exhibit really was.

They had just made over 50 Euro from our little group. It was almost an example of installation art, and we were part of it. They never lied, per se, but I'm sure that I was not alone in thinking I would be viewing something I recognized. Hang a few posters with Dali's picture and put up some signs to direct people to the entrance -- it seems almost as though they wanted us to get our hopes up.

The pieces we did see were very interesting. Some of them were even stranger than all the paintings with which I was familiar. There was an entire series where he had illustrated every Canto of Dante's Divine Comedy. This spanned wall after wall, and somehow made the Inferno seem more like torture than Dante had ever accomplished. He also had many pieces illustrating one of my favorite children's series, the "Alice in Wonderland" books. The Mad Tea Party never seemed as much like a horrible acid trip than when Dali envisioned it.

Another series was an ode to American inventors -- which, at least in the sampling we were afforded, was only Thomas Edison. He gave Edison credit for many things for which he was not responsible, such as the pyramids and . . . donkeys.

Dali is the perfect example of how one generation (literary, artistic, or genealogical) rebels against the previous. Dali obviously did not create art in the same way as he was trained, or else his work would more closely resemble that of his predecessors. Also, one can understand how the "old" people are frightened or turned off by the work of the new generation. Dali probably scared a lot of people during his time. Through this example, it is easier to understand why the Romantics and Moderns shocked and scared people with their newfangled ways, and why the Postmoderns sometimes even scare themselves.

After finishing our viewing, we tried to find the exit. Near the end of the gallery there was a door open with a sign that indicated a way out. So, being entirely rational people, we followed the signs outside, onto the roof of the building beside / attached to it, and around and around until we got to a staircase that headed down to the street. However, Andy and I remembered that we had checked our bags at the entrance, so we went back to get them. As we neared the exhibit again, the guy from the front leans outside and said "Inspecting the roof?" We explained that the signs pointed that this was the exit, though we weren't quite sure by the looks of it. He told us that we had to come back inside and leave the way we came in.

We ignore his snooty tone and do as instructed. After checking out the way-overpriced gift shop and the very strange film of Dali they were playing, we decided to go into Stuttgart for dinner. We ate at the Wienerwald because no one could come up with anything better. The water was very expensive, so we all just got small bottles -- we heard a rumor of a magical trinkwasser fountain somewhere in Stuttgart. Actually, we heard about it because Jake and Andy found in on their Nazi scavenger hunt in Stuttgart last week. So, we kept the bottles from dinner (( we had poor service anyway )) and made our way to the fountain.

The only public water fountain I've seen since being in Germany (( not in our Universitätspark buildings )) is in front of the Holocaust memorial with the four giant granite blocks. How we had missed it on our tour the first week is beyond me. We walked right past it several times. Regardless, we filled our bottles many times over. The concept of free and unlimited water is something I definitely took for granted at home . . . and I fully intend on appreciating and take advantage of it on my return. We hung out for a little while in the streets of Stuttgart and took some pictures to commemorate the finding of the water. Then we headed back to the Schwä.