Description

Author:

Salvador Dalí i Domènech - Gyula Halász, alias Brassaï

Date:

ca. 1933

Technique:

Photograph and found object or object of automatic origin
Gelatin silver print

Dimensions:

23,4 x 17,7 cm
The dimensions correspond to the original print run of the photograph

Location:

Centre Pompidou - Musée national d'art moderne - Centre de création industrielle, Paris

Between 1932-1933, Dalí took on the artistic direction of a series of photographs made with Gyula Halász, alias Brassaï (1899-1984), in which certain objects, probably of automatic origin, acquire a new conceptual and artistic dimension, grounded in the essence of the photographic image. Several of these photographs were published anonymously in 1933 in the magazine Minotaure, under the heading ‘Sculptures involontaires’, each with a descriptive title drawing attention to details of the work. A number of these photographs that were not made public at the time constitute further examples of this type of creation, such as this photograph, conserved in the Centre de création industrielle at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. A letter from Dalí to Brassaï, in or around 1933, includes a preliminary design for this work together with the words ‘aussi debu come sil s’agissait d’un esculture’ [sic] (standing upright as if it were a sculpture).

Observations

Bibliography

1. Brassaï, Centre Pompidou, Seuil, Paris, 2000, pp. 134, 317, ill., indirect image (reversed image)
2. La Subversion des images : surrealisme, photographie, film, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2009, pp. 347, 461, ill., indirect image (reversed image)
3. Didier Ottinger, Dictionnaire de l'objet surréaliste, Gallimard, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2013, pp. [245], 246, [307], ill.
4. Anna Dezeuze, Julia Kelly, Found sculpture and photography from surrealism to contemporary art, Ashgate, Farnham, UK, Burlington, VT, 2013, pp. 5-9, [13]-18, 30, 99-102

Related works

• «Symmetrically» rolled-up bus ticket, forming a rare mechanism of automatism with evident germs of stereotypes 1932-1933
• Ornamental Modern Style bread escapes the soft stereotype 1932-1933
• Piece of soap presenting Modern Style automatic shapes, found in a washbasin 1932-1933
• The morphological accident of the squeezed toothpaste does not escape the fine ornamental stereotype 1932-1933
• Elementary rolling-up obtained from a «mental defective» 1932-1933
• Rolled-up bus ticket, found in the pocket of an average bureaucrat (Crédit Lyonnais); the most frequent characteristics of «Modern Style» 1932-1933
• The Envelope ca. 1933
• Piece of cotton wool instantly rolled up and abandoned (category of «aborted automatisms») ca. 1933
• Untitled. Automatic object ca. 1933
• Shell ca. 1933

Reproduction Rights

Contact