Salvador Dali’s “Profile of Time” now at Arkady Wrocławskie
The ceremony of unveiling of the sculpture was hosted by the Management Board of LC Corp, Dr Leszek Czarnecki (the majority shareholder), city officials and Lower Silesia’s representatives of scientific and cultural circles. Associate Professor Waldemar Okoń, Director of the Wrocław University’s Art History Institute gave a short lecture on the sculpture and Salvador Dali.
The sculpture of Salvador Dali, monumental in its expression and size, origins from the series of productions created in 1997-1984, entitled Profile of Time. It represents the artist’s sculpting continuation of his considerations given to life, time, passing, and permanence of fate. These considerations were initiated with the painting of 1931 Persistence of Memory (in Spanish: La persistencia de la memoria) also known under the title Melting Clocks. The painting is now to be found in the collections of the New York’s MoMA, and is one of the artist’s most famous paintings, and at the same time probably the most well-known surrealist picture in the world. In the presented sculpture, which is the third cast in the series of eight, you can clearly see the recurring motif of a melting clock, spread on a branch of a tree. The artist moved from a two-dimensional painting to the three-dimensional world of sculpture. In the outline of the tree we can distinguish analogies of a silhouette of a man who is trying to capture fleeting time, the time we cannot grasp, the time inertly overflowing.
The sculpture Profile of Time was made in numerous versions and sizes. This particular work is monumental in its dimension. It is nearly 4 metres high (3.8 x 2 x 2.6 m). It was documented in the book by Robert and Nicolas Descharnes, Dalí: The Hard and the Soft, Sculptures & Objects, of 2004 (page 238, ref. no. 615). The cast was made in a reputed foundry “Perseo” in Mendrisio (Switzerland). It is made of bronze using the lost wax method (cire perdue). The sculpture is patinated in brown and green shades, and seated on a plinth.
The sculpture will be located in front of one of the main entrances to SKY TOWER. Until the project is completed, the sculpure will decorate “Arkady Wrocławskie” Centre also belonging to LC Corp S.A.