[MUSIC PLAYING]
 We're here at the
Museum of Modern Art,
one of my favorite art museums.
We're going to get a chance
to see some of the most
famous works of art.
Let's get inside
and get started.
Follow me.
This episode is funded by The
Glick Fund and the Christal
DeHaan Family
Foundation who inspire
philanthropy and creativity.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
 We are here in front of
one of the underestimated,
small, smallness of this Dali
painting with Larissa Bailiff.
Thank you so much for your time.
 It's a real pleasure, Nate.
This is one of my
favorite works and I
think one of the most
popular in MoMA's collection.
 Yeah, well, tell us
a little bit about it,
I mean, besides the fact that it
is way smaller than I expected.
 I know.
Isn't it crazy?
I joke that every time
I come into the gallery
it gets smaller and smaller.
And, you know, part of that is
that Salvador Dali is painting
on a really miniature scale.
He wants to give us
this powerful impact
with this little
work that's painted
with the most minute details.
 Yeah.
And so, well, real quick, too,
how did the museum get this?
 This was given to
the museum in 1934.
And that's just three
years after it was painted.
So this was really at
the height of surrealism.
And surrealism, of
course, is a movement
that starts in
France in the 1920s
and is associated with the
visual arts and literature,
writing.
It has to do with
dreamscapes and delving
into the unconscious, so
bringing that onto the canvas,
if you will.
 Oh, yeah.
And so tell us.
Everybody is going
to want to know.
And this had been--
I've been obsessed with Dali
since, gosh, high school.
But why the clocks, the ants?
And what is going
on in this painting?
 Exactly.
Well, again, he uses
this hyper-realism only
to kind of the thwart
our expectations
to get us to really
think about it
or maybe not to think
it all, to react to it.
It's a-- it has all kinds
of irrational aspects
or juxtapose aspects
that we're not expecting.
So why the melted watches?
And what are the
ants doing there?
Well, hard and soft seem to
be really at play in this work
and confusing.
There are the
cliffs of Cataquez,
where he's from in Catalonia.
And those are timeless, right?
Geology, it's been
there forever.
It's permanent.
And time itself is supposed
to be permanent, right?
It's something that
we can measure.
It's something that
we can count on.
And one of the things
that Dali is playing with
is melted watches.
We don't expect that.
What does that
mean if time melts
or if ants are crawling
over something?
It's decay and entropy.
 Now, this is a rumor.
I don't know if it's true,
that he would put himself
into a self-hallucination state
to paint these kind of things.
I mean, how true is that?
 So lot of surrealist
artists, again,
trying to delve into
their unconscious
in different ways, that could
be waking up from a dream
and writing everything down,
it could be closing your eyes
and drawing and seeing
what comes supposedly
from your unconscious, or it
could be trying to put yourself
into a hypnotic state.
And I think that Dali
did do that to try
to get to another realm.
 Where did he learn
to become a painter?
Like, what was any
of his background?
Did he--
 So he did go to school.
He did study art and he
did study mathematics
and science and poetry.
These were all of great interest
to him, and read constantly.
And eventually he gave this
up for full-time art making,
creating films and paintings,
and moved to Paris from Spain.
 Wow.
During this time, there
was a lot going on
with Einstein and Freud.
I mean, how much--
 Absolutely.
 --do you think
was influenced--
like all that science going on?
 Very much.
So, as I said, he was
constantly reading books.
We know that he was
doing this at university.
And he continued
that fascination
with science and perhaps
anxiety with science
throughout his life and career.
And Einstein's
theory of relativity
was very much in the air.
And one of the
things that Dali says
about this, about
the melted clocks,
is that he was inspired by
melting Camembert cheese--
 OK.
 --in the summer time.
But--
 So this is--
is this an idea?
 I don't think that's
all that's there.
And I wouldn't be the
first to say that.
I think this idea
of the expandability
of time or the fact
that time might not
be fixed as Einstein showed.
Sigmund Freud as well was very
much at the root of surrealism.
 Yeah, I know he looked
up to him quite a lot.
 He did and he
eventually met him
when Sigmund Freud
was in his 80s.
But that was an inspiration
for many of these artists
who were thinking about
dreams and the unconscious
and how to expose
that and cultivate it
in a new artistic movement.
 I have to ask.
So I always thought of, if
he had a camera, that he
would black belt a selfie.
So I-- he loved to take
pictures of himself.
Now, do we see any-- is there--
I've heard that that
might be a self-portrait.
 Yes.
So-- and I love that
you bring up photography
as well because he was
very interested in film.
And he thought of his
paintings like this.
They're-- they're so realistic,
they almost might be,
as he called them,
hand-painted photographs.
It's not a photograph
that's painted,
but it gives that aesthetic.
But to your point of the
selfie and the portrait,
many people have
interpreted, and I
think he intended, that
figure in the middle,
that very strange,
equally melted,
amorphous figure to be
a kind of self-portrait.
So how strange is
that with that sense
of illegibility and
strange, melted quality,
to show himself?
So we might be able to
see him and his face
and his nose and his long
eyelashes sort of draped
over a rock formation with
another watch almost looking
like saddle, as if he's somewhat
part human and part horse.
 This is a really big mat.
And then this frame
is really unique.
Can you tell me
anything about it?
 Yeah, isn't that interesting?
So, again, it's almost as
big as the picture itself.
And it is a really unusual
frame with the velvet matting
there and the box.
And so this was
an original frame,
as I understand it,
that Dali created.
And I want to relate this
both to his interest in cinema
and the kind of idea of looking
into a box and framing films
but also kind of designating how
one should look at his imagery,
so constructing the whole
thing, being in control of it.
 That background you
mentioned from his hometown,
which is gorgeous, yeah,
I mean, it feels like,
now that you say it,
shadow box, like I'm
looking through a window now.
 Right?
 Oh, thank you so much
for showing us around.
It's such a beautiful-- you
have to come in to really enjoy
the frame, that frame, yeah.
 And to-- and to look
at how small it is.
 Oh, thank you so much.
 Thank you, Nate.
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