Making scents of Dali's surrealist sensibility brings rewards
The Age
Saturday June 13, 2009
THE pot at the end of the rainbow at any art blockbuster is the museum shop, though it sounds far less crass if you call it "cultural merchandising".Just how big that pot might be will be known today and tomorrow as Salvador Dali: Liquid Desire opens for business at the National Gallery of Victoria on St Kilda Road."It could be as little as $100,000 (for the show's three-month season) or much more depending on the success of the exhibition," said Joan Manuel Sevillano Campalans, the director of the Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation in Figueres, Spain, which runs the world's largest Dali museum there and controls the licences for all Dali merchandise around the world."Here, try this," Mr Sevillano Campalans said, spraying one of 10 available Dali fragrances on a tester at the NGV shop this week. He explained that most scents were approved by Dali long before his death in 1989 and produced by a French company through a 50-year licensing deal."The foundation will earn 3 to 5 per cent of the retail price of everything sold here, and with our sales at our shop in Figueres and at the Dali Museum in St Petersburg (Florida) this brings in about 1.5 million euros ($A2.6 million) or 10 per cent of the foundation's annual turnover," said Mr Sevillano Campalans.When visitors - it's hoped at least 200,000 will attend - exit the show, they can also take home the Spanish artist's wacky humour in dozens of other products. These range from postcards and scarves to the Dali-designed Mae West lips that come in the form of cushions, purses, and costume jewellery that costs up to $269 a piece.The Dali industry is counted after the Picasso and Warhol estates in term of its licensing clout. Dali had no heirs so the money goes back to the foundation, which runs the museum in Figueres as well as Dali's two former homes on the Costa Brava.Mr Sevillano Campalans was joined yesterday by the director of Dalinian studies at the Figueres museum, Ms Montse Aguer Teixidor, who will speak at 11.25am today at the NGV about Dali's expulsion from the Surrealist movement. Inquiries: 8662 1555.
© 2009 The Age