Melting watches, burning giraffes and surreal liquid skies arrive in Moscow on Tuesday as a vast exhibit of Salvador Dali's works opens in the Central House of Artists.


The exhibit, sponsored by a group of Russian and German companies, comprises some 900 paintings, sketches, and early sculptures and etchings, in addition to an opera. A 2 1/2 hour piece of music composed by Dali called "To Be God" will be played on tape during the hours that the show is open to the public.


In addition to the display of original works, the show's sponsors -- VEOS Art Association of Germany and Krymsky Val Art Company of Russia -- have set up an elaborate gift shop in one of the exhibit's halls. There you can find prints, posters and even Dali-designed furniture for sale for up to $17,000.


In a sense, the current Dali display is an expansion of one that occurred in Moscow six years ago. In 1988, the Pushkin Museum hosted a display of several dozen of the surrealist's works that belonged to Pierre Argilet, a prominent French publisher and collector. This show is much bigger.


"Most of you know the oil paintings of the soft clocks and the burning giraffes from reproductions," said Ewald Acher, chairman of VEOS. "But Dali's work with oils was really his last stage of creativity. He was also a sculptor, a graphic artist, a filmmaker. This show depicts not just the soft clocks, but how he got there."


Dali was born in Spain in 1904 and, like many artists in the first half of the 20th century, passed through phases of cubism and futurism and metaphysical painting before settling into surrealism in 1929. Throughout his life he cultivated eccentricity and exhibitionism; he became a master of self-promotion. He once described his pictures as "hand-painted dream photographs," and a walk through the current exhibit affirms this view. From the painting of a flower with record albums as petals to the ubiquitous melting clocks, Dali clearly comes across as part genius, part madman.


The show, on the third floor of the hangar-like Central House of Artists, is a combination of two private collections, both of which reside permanently in Germany's Heidelberg Castle museum.


"We see this not just as a display of Dali as a master," said Mikhail Cherepashenets, the show's Russian organizer. "We want to show how Dali helped the whole process of creativity in the 20th century."





"Dali Without Borders" runs until Sept. 14 at the Central House of Artists, at 10 Krymsky Val. It is open from 11 A.M. to 7 P.M. Closed Monday. Tel. 238-1955. Nearest metro: Oktyabrskaya.