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Thursday, 2 September, 2010 1:18 AM

'In Your Dreams: 500 Years of Imaginary Prints' to open at the DIA on Sept. 8

DETROIT -- A new exhibit featuring 120 of the Detroit Institute of Arts' European and American prints will open on Sept. 8 and will be on view until Jan. 2, 2011. It is all being called In Your Dreams: 500 Years of Imaginary Prints. The new exhibit includes works by Francisco Goya, Pablo Picasso, Albrecht Dürer, Salvador Dalí and Marc Chagall. Access to In Your Dreams is free with general admission to the museum in midtown Detroit.

First, can you give me some highlights of the new exhibit?

"It's a show that really celebrates the life of imagination," said DIA Curator Nancy Sojka. "We've got some wonderful things in it from prints that were made in the 1490's by Albert Dürer, The Apocalypse. Some wonderful prints by Goya, who a lot of people know. A few by Picasso. It includes a lot of big names and a lot of wonderful monsters actually."

How difficult was it to put this exhibit together?

"It's a crazy show that someone put itself together," Sojka added. "I knew I had some terrific anchors like the Goya I mentioned. There's actually 18 Goya from one series. There's 16 Piranesi's in the 1750's of imaginary prisms. I knew I had these groupings. Around them, I put individual prints. It was actually a heck of a lot of fun given the nature of the idea. The subconscious dreams, anything that looked realistic was actually quite wacky."

There are pieces from many different artists in the collection. What is being displayed by Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí specifically?

"Salvador Dalí did a St. George and the Dragon that is actually the second print you come and see in the show," the curator said. "It's actually paired with an Italian artist who many hundreds of years earlier did exactly the same subject. For Picasso, we've got one print that shows a miniature imaginary beast fighting in the bullring. We've also got his Dream and Lie of Franco from the 1930's that are a direct commentary on the Spanish Civil War, which was so great and dear to topic to his heart."

Have these art pieces ever been on display before at the DIA?

"Yeah, most of them have been in and out of shows," she confirmed. "A couple of them like the Goya, the Piranesi, the Picassos. We've got another artist Odilon Redon was a 19th-century French artist represented by two series that would have been out a lot. Typically, we do thematic shows from the body of works for the topic of the show that might be included. A lot of these are familiar to viewers. Once they see them, they'll know they recognize the imagery."

What separates this exhibit from previous exhibits shown at the DIA?

"It is this cohesive body of 135 prints from many different cultures across 500 years of time that all speak to the same idea," Sojka explained. "The crazy thing is actually is the way it ties into some things from the DIA collection. I actually think I somehow got the idea for the show in thinking about a great Fuseli painting called The Nightmare that you can see upstairs in the European gallery. I was also thinking about a wonderful drawing we have in the collection that viewers will have seen often. It's not out on view right now, but The Canaletto of an imaginary Italian scene. Somehow, those two works of art sort of crystallized into this bigger idea."

In which part of the building is this collection located?

"The exhibition is in the Schwartz Galleries of Prints and Drawings," the curator said. "They're on display through January 2. Access to the exhibit is included with general admission."

For more information on the new exhibit "In Your Dreams: 500 Years of Imaginary Prints," visit www.dia.org.