Ingrid Schaffner

As bizarre as it seems, artist Salvador Dali designed a "fun house" for the 1939 New York World's Fair. Entitled "Dream of Venus," it was a cross between a surrealist fantasy world and a nudie show.

In one room you could peer through a glass wall and see topless women swim in a tank of water complete with a Dali mural of Mount Vesuvius erupting in the background, a piano whose keyboard was a naked mannequin painted in black and white, and a mummified cow. (After experimenting to find show more sufficiently clear water for the tank, Dali settled on unfiltered New York tap water.) In another room, topless women perched on the roof of a taxi cab which held Christopher Columbus as a passenger. It rained inside the cab. There were several other rooms and I could go on, but you get the idea....

The fun house was demolished before the Fair opened for its final season in 1940, although how girlie shows and surrealist dreams didn't pull 'em in is a mystery to me. Seventy years after the dream ended, this abundantly illustrated volume is the closest we can come to a visit.

Schaffner's text is a bit surreal itself, but filled with information on the design, creation, and public reaction to Dali's fun house. The photographs include many rare color images which have faded over time, lending them an even more dreamlike cast.

The book appeals on many levels, World's Fair history, documentation of the artistic process, evocative/provocative coffee table book. While perhaps not the ideal Christmas gift for Aunt Mathilda, I'd certainly recommend it. show less

Another cheap pick-up at the Hershey Library book sale. I'm not much of an art appreciative person, nor am I very good at reading into art the meanings, the subtleties or the levels of complexity. And I also only had a rudimentary, vague idea of Picasso's life.

But this did a wonderful job of describing his artwork through the ages, describing his life, the times, the cultures, etc, that it really brought a lot of great information to the forefront on him.

The Essential Series are small bios of important artists.
Man Ray, who I used to mix up with Rene Magritte, was one of the originators of Surrealism.
You've seen his stuff: a disembodied huge pair of red lips in a blue sky; an iron with nails sticking out of the bottom; iconic surreal fashion photos. He hung with Marcel Duchamp and the dadaists.
Reading this little book about this big man inspired me greatly.
It fires the bohemian punk iconoclastic artistic spirit within.

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Exhibition catalogue published in conjunction with show held at Haus der Kunst, Munich, August 3 - December 10, 1997. Traveled to Nationalgalerie SMPK, Berlin, December 1997 - January 1998; Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf im Ehrenhof, February 1998; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, July 5 - August 30, 1998; and Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, November 5, 1998 - January 31, 1999. Curated by Hubert Gaßner, Stefan Iglhaut, Ingrid Schaffner, Bernhart Schwenk, and Matthias Winzen. Additional texts show more by Geoffrey Batchen, Eugen Blume, Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, Susan Buck-Morss, Sheryl Conkelton, Trevor Fairbrother, Justin Hoffmann, Stefan Iglhaut, Jon Ippolito, Geert Lovink, Bernhart Schwenk and Susan Stewart. With an interview between Ingrid Schaffner and Elizabeth Lunning. Artists include: Arman, Arndt/Moonen, Richard Artschwager, Eugéne Atge, Eugène Atget, Hannelore Baron, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joseph Beuys, Douglas Blau, Jennifer Bolande, Christian Boltanski, Karsten Bott, Marcel Broodthaers, David Bunn, Sophie Calle, Christo, Joseph Cornell, Meg Cranston, Ingrid Scharlau, Hanne Darboven, David Deutsch, Marcel Duchamp, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Fleischmann/Strauss, Fluxus Collective, Vera Frenkel, Jochen Gerz, Sabine Groß, Lynn Hershman, Stefan Hoderlein, On Kawara, Karen Kilimnik, Peter Kogler, Louise Lawler, George Legrady, Piero Manzoni, Paul McCarthy, Annette Messager, Reinhard Mucha, Wilhelm Mundt, Claes Oldenburg, Nam June Paik, Robert Rauschenberg, Jason Rhoades, Edward Ruscha, Jeanne Silverthorne, Daniel Spoerri, Steinle/Rosefeldt, Thomas Virnich, Aby Warburg, Andy Warhol, Ute Weiss-Leder, H.C. Westermann, and Peter Wüthrich. Includes an index, selected bibliography, and author biographies. Texts in German. show less