In 1950, the Ateneu Barcelonès hosted Salvador Dalí with a conference that was certainly not banal: Why I was sacrilegious. Why am I a mystic?
Long before the announced time, such a crowd had gathered that it completely overwhelmed the surveillance service and flooded the room and even the surrounding area, with countless standing attendees.
The presence of professors, such as Monsignor Ramon Roquer, directors of the French and Italian institutes, and various intellectuals was logical. But it was surprising to see these capitostos: Lieutenant Vicari Castrense, Secretary of the Superior Directorate of Police, Provincial Delegate of Popular Education (euphemism for censorship capitosto) and Civil Governor of Santander.
What really turned out to be much more spectacular was that the Civil Governor of Barcelona, the Second Commander of the Navy and the Chief of Police sat between the presidency. Precisely.
Dalí was always a colossal salesman. And he displayed a seductive chameleonism: revolutionary (when the civil war broke out he asked to be Commissioner), sacrilegious painter of La profanació de l’ and writer of Vida secreta or mystical creator of La .
It is true that in his conference he persevered in the denunciatory tone by apostrophizing not only the Altar-robber Brunet, but also the brunets, but it was angelic compared to what he had dedicated to the venerated Guimerà in 1930 and at the same Athenaeum: the great . Chairs flew over his head and he was escorted out.
During his stay in the United States, he realized that being a lecturer was a pastime for only a few dozen people present, when other means that were indeed revolutionary marked the future that had to be followed in front of oceans of spectators. So, he imposed the powerful personal show, knowing that it would be broadcast by radios and televisions.
In 1936 he already deserved the most ambitious journalistic cover, that of the North American magazine Time. And in a country that seeks, persecutes and lives in anticipation of the news, but which soon despises it and takes it for granted, Dalí knew how to reach and succeed in the most difficult: to maintain and surpass Picasso in popularity. His death was front page news around the world.
