SALVADOR DALÍ Y DOMENECH
Étude pour "Le Toréador hallucinogène" (Variation autour du tableau "Toreádor Hallucinogène", avec tête de Voltaire du tableau "Marché d'Esclaves avec Apparition du Buste Invisible de Voltaire")
Circa 1970
Acrylic paint, India ink, photo-collage and découpage on firm card, slightly irregularly cut 32.8 x 3 x 38.5 cm (mat opening 23 x 30.1 cm, card support 32.9/31.7 x x 40.8 cm) Framed under glass. - The photo fragments verso glued irregularly on top of others to the card, partly becoming slightly detached from the card at the corners; the right central half of the motif attached with yellowed adhesive tape to the margins. Minor studio traces.
The present reworked photo collage by Dalí combines techniques that were developed by the Dadaists and carried on by the Surrealists. Pop artists also made use of them. This creative, playful act leads to a hybrid photo montage in which it is no longer possible to distinguish between reality and image, illusion and phantasm. Dalí used the technique in particular to create unsettling double images. Individual motifs and depicted objects are literally multiplied, mirrored, cut apart and recombined, in order to in turn be reproduced and charged with meanings on the next level. The acts of defamiliarisation create new contexts. It is not only the subconscious and human fantasy which are set free. Viewers are immersed in and can literally “lose” themselves within the imagined images and parallel worlds - modern times!
This collage initiates one of these Dalíesque voyages of discovery. It interweaves photos and details of two famous paintings by Dalí: “Marché d'esclaves avec apparition du buste invisible de Voltaire” (1940) and “Le torero hallucinogène” (circa 1968-1970). In this way it unites central and important elements in the iconography of the Spanish artist. Through découpage, collage and modifications to the colours, the poetry of syntax and semantics is rekindled in the sketch: the contour of the dreaming melancholic as a torero, located on the right, is juxtaposed on the left with the skull of the aged Voltaire, which is based on the famous portrait bust by Houdon. Both are mirrored in powerful contrast before the sheerly unending accumulation of “woman” as such: the “Venus de Milo”.
Certificate
The work is registered in the Archives Robert and Nicolas Descharnes, Azay-le-Rideau (d 3570).
Provenance
The Perrot-Moore Collection, Cadaquès; Artcurial-Briest-Poulain Le Fur, Paris Vente Collection Perrot Moore, 30 June 2003, lot 223; Sotheby's London, Impressionist and modern Works on Paper, sale June 22, 2006, lot 518; Private possession, Rhineland
Literature
Cf.: Robert Descharnes/ Gilles Néret, Salvador Dali, Das malerische Werk, Cologne 1993, vol. I, no. 743 with colour illus. p. 331 ("Sklavenmarkt mit unsichtbarer Büste Voltaires"); vol. II, pp. 577 f., no. 1290 with colour illus. p. 578 ("Der halluzinogene Torero")
Exhibitions
Vienna/ Munich 1982 (Palais Auersperg/ Münchner Residenz, Alter Herkulessaal), Salvador Dali, Bilder, Zeichnungen, Objekte, Eine Ausstellung des Museu Perrot-Moore, Cadaques, cat. no. 54 with colour illus.; Perpignan 1982 (Palais des Rois de Majorque), Dali à Perpignan, cat. no. 54 with colour illus.; Zurich 1982/1983 (Seedamm-Kulturzenturm), Salvador Dali, Bilder, Zeichnungen, Objekte, Sammlung Perrot-Moore, cat. no. 52 with colour illus.; Toulouse 1983/1984 (Réfectoire des Jacobins), Salvador Dali, Huiles, Dessins, Sculptures, with colour illus.; Buenos Aires 1986 (Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo), Dali en Argentina, with illus.; Sao Paulo 1986 (Museu de Arte Moderna), Dali no Brasil, with colour illus.