Good Bones at the Dalí Museum

Eileen and I were second in line when the doors opened at 10:00 on Sunday, July 26th — the first morning of our two days in Clearwater, St. Pete and Sarasota - the mini vacation I'd been looking forward to.

The introductory film in the theater earned its keep, a solid primer before wading into the galleries. We had a timed slot for the dome show at 11:30, so with an hour to spend, we wandered into the student exhibit first, mostly to kill time. It turned out to be the best decision we made all day. The work on the walls was from kids still in school, and some of it stopped me in my tracks — a few of my favorites are below.

The reason the student work resonated with me is because it is contemporary. I used to create art on my iPad for several years using Procreate and other apps. I take part in daily art challenges.

Then came the part I'd actually shown up for, and the part that slightly let me down. I'd watched enough YouTube reviews beforehand to walk in with sky-high expectations for the 360-degree dome show, Dalí Alive, and it never cleared the bar I'd built for it. This 36 minute show was an add-on of $15 per person to the museum ticket. (The 3 hour Odysseus movie only cost us $10 each, non-IMAX :) I caught myself yawning more than once, and general sleep debt may be a co-defendant here, in fairness to the show. But I've sat inside a dome light show that held a room before. The Great Dome in Dubai during Expo 2020 is still the reference point in my head, and this wasn't in the same weight class.

Dali's Imagery

The rest of the permanent collection landed in similar territory. Dalí was unquestionably ahead of his time, but the way he'd stack three or four images and meanings into a single canvas has aged into something I respect more than I feel — a period technique rather than a live wire.

( To see how I'd build double images in the 2020's, see examples of Pareidolia in my blog post last year https://www.sebastianantony.com/when-i-got-serious-about-ai-art/ or Tiny Sheep entries at https://www.sebastianantony.com/art-from-week-4-july-2026/ )

Dali's Ego

I learned that Dali had a well documented massive Ego, and courted attention whenever he could.

"Each morning when I awake, I experience again a supreme pleasure: that of being Salvador Dalí."

"At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since."

Christ Crucifiction is viewed from above in the Abraham Lincoln face painting. Did Dali possibly see himself as God looking down on earth?

AR & VR Letdown

The museum's Augmented Reality or AR app, meant to unpack more insight into 8 of the paintings, unfortunately glitched or jerked around every time I pointed my phone at the painting. You can test the AR experience for yourself outside the museum using this link https://thedali.org/desktop-dalis-masterworks-in-augmented-reality/ on your computer + mobile phone.

The Virtual Reality or VR exhibit required me to take my eyeglasses off first, so I spent it squinting at a blur, which was almost funny given that I solved this exact problem for my Meta headset at home couple of years ago, with a simple pair of prescription inserts. The museum hasn't unfortunately caught up to my inexpensive Meta headset yet.

Museum Architecture

What actually won the morning for me was the building. Eighteen-inch, hurricane-proof concrete walls, built like a bunker — and out of one corner erupts a 75-foot glass bubble made of 1,062 triangular panes, nicknamed the Enigma, as if the building couldn't contain itself. Inside, a helical staircase spirals up through the atrium in a nod to the shape of the DNA molecule.

There was a stretch a few years back when I was deep into shooting architectural abstracts, and this building would have sent that version of me through the roof. It's the rare structure that's more interesting than most of what's hanging on its walls.

The café more than held its own, and so did the gift shop taking up a good chunk of the ground floor.

If you're making me put a number on MY experience at the Dali museum: 3.5 out of 5 Stars.

And if I'm honest about which parts I'd actually go back for, it's not the show they put on the posters. It's the building that holds it, and the work of students who haven't graduated yet.

The bones outlasted the surface, same as they usually do.

thedali.org, if you're ever on that stretch of the Gulf Coast, certainly worth a visit.