The Obra Cultural de la Universidad Europea del Atlántico (UNEATLANTICO), in collaboration with the Fundación Canaria para la Acción Exterior (FUCAEX) of the Government of the Canary Islands, presents in the city of Praia, Cape Verde, the exhibition ‘Ilustra Casanova’ by the Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, offering the Cape Verdean public the unique opportunity to contemplate the surrealism that has transformed the contemporary art scene.
This exhibition, which will be open from 14 November to 15 December, consists of a set of 14 original engravings in which the Spanish surrealist artist depicts some episodes from Memoires de Giacomo Casanova, the 18th century Venetian poet and writer.
Thanks to FUNIBER and FUCAEX, the city of Praia receives, for the first time, an exhibition dedicated to the master of surrealism, the Spaniard Salvador Dalí, with the iconic work ‘Ilustra Casanova’, which has also had the support of the Spanish Embassy in Cape Verde and the European University of the Atlantic, in Santander, Spain.
The opening ceremony was presided over by H.E. the President of the Republic of Cape Verde, Mr. José María Neves; by Mr. F. Álvaro Durántez Prados, Director of Institutional Relations of the Ibero-American University Foundation and Director of the FUNIBER Chair of Ibero-American Studies and Iberophony, as well as by Mr. Jorge Cólogan, Director of FUNIBER’s headquarters in Cape Verde and delegate in Cape Verde of the Canary Islands Foundation for Foreign Action (FUCAEX) of the Government of the Canary Islands.
With this exhibition, the Cape Verdean public has had the rare opportunity to witness Dalí’s intricate artistic vision up close, in which the real and the fantastic coexist in disturbing and fascinating ways. The exhibition also aimed to show the Cape Verdean public Dalí’s influence on António Pedro, the only renowned Cape Verdean artist associated with the Surrealist movement, whose works have a striking proximity to the aesthetics of Salvador Dalí. António Pedro’s works, often endowed with a surreal and introspective narrative, are in dialogue with Dalí’s universe, especially in terms of exploration of the subconscious mind and juxtaposition of unusual images. This historical and artistic connection will be underlined in the exhibition, creating a symbolic bridge between Cape Verde’s artistic legacy and the currents of surrealism.