Télévision liquide et gazeuse
Salvador Dali; Chase & Alan Rich, New York
Description
Subject Matter:
This work was part of Salvador Dalí's 1975 Imaginations and Objects of the Future portfolio. It contained ten prints with an introductory text by the artist that discussed the project's focus on new technologies' ability to create an alternate universe, especially through holograms.
In this print and collage, the television screen plays out in a few ways. First, the small collage of his 1934-35 painting "Mae West's Face which May be Used as a Surrealist Apartment" (Art Institute of Chicago) is set into a tv-like cube and is intently watched—marked by the dotted lines that transverse the small inset page—by the robot-man at the left. Mae West was an early-twentieth century film star and was once Dalí's muse; he created a number of works using her visage. Her image is here like a rerun of a movie playing on TV. At the same time, the inset cream page acts as a kind of screen that obfuscates the face that can be seen in the black lines on the main sheet. Perhaps, this screen is inside the mind of the drawn woman. Dalí provides a Surreal vision of television that does not adhere to the laws of physics—liquid or gaseous.
Physical Description:
In this mixed-media print, there is a white background with black outlines of facial features, lips and an eye, and a creature in the bottom left. In the upper left corner there is a rectanglular sheet in cream layered on top; a wavy vertical design stretches diagonally from the top of the rectangle to the bottom in yellow, red, and blue. Within this sheet, there are small figures at the center left drawn in black. To the right in the sheet, there is a collaged image of one of the artist's paintings, incorporated into a cube. Above, there are drawn birds. There is a small mechanical-like figure on the sheet at the bottom left. At the center of the print, in the cream page, the artist signed "Dali" and dated the print "1975. To the bottom left, on the larger white page, there is text inscribed in the plate, mirrored and someone illegible, that possibly reads "Leill Ciclopeer Alucire la bouche Almient tire / Lula [illegible]." The print is number at the lower left in pencil.
Usage Rights:
If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit https://umma.umich.edu/request-image/ for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.