PARIS.- Espace Dali in Paris, France’s only museum dedicated to Dali, has loaned the iconic Mae West Divano, created by the Catalan genius during the 1940’s, to be part of the ‘Dreamlands’ exhibition organised by the Pompidou Centre, in Paris, which runs from May to August 2010. Based on the famous American actresses sensual lips, Dali pays homage to Mae West with this inspired and original artwork.

The ‘Dreamlands’ exhibition, which is being held in the Grand Galerie of the Pompidou centre, considers for the first time the question of how World Fairs, international exhibitions, theme parks and similar institutions have influenced our ideas about the city and the way public spaces are used. The exhibition brings together more than 300 artworks, both modern and contemporary, as well as short films and documents drawn from numerous public and private collections.

The exhibition seeks to show how cities such as Las Vegas and Dubai, where the concept of reality has become completely blurred, have changed our aesthetic perception of urban spaces. World Fairs, amusement parks contemporaries, the Las Vegas of the 1950s and 1960s, Dubai's twenty-first century: these projects have contributed to profound changes in the world and our relationship to geography, time and history, notions of original and copy, art and non-art.

From the "Pavilion of Venus" by Salvador Dali designed for the International Trade Fair New York 1939, "Learning From Las Vegas" (Teaching Vegas) architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, and "Delirious New York" Rem Koolhaas (which emphasizes the kinship between Manhattan and the Dreamland amusement park), the sixteen sections of the exhibition retrace the steps of a complex and problematic concept whioch this exhibition explores and explains.

The Pompidou centre is Paris' leading cultural institution in terms of opening times to cater for its wide variety of visitors. Closed only on Tuesdays and 1 May, the Dreamlands exhibition is open from 11 am to 9 pm each day.