Salvador Dalí (1904–1989)

With 101 Life magazine covers to his credit, Philippe Halsman (1906-1979) was one of the leading portrait photographers of his time. In addition to his distinguished career in photojournalism, Halsman was one of the great pioneers of experimental photography, motivated by a profound desire to push this youngest of art forms toward new frontiers by using innovative and unorthodox photographic techniques. One of Halsman's favorite subjects was Salvador Dali, the glittering and controversial show more painter and theorist with whom the photographer shared a unique friendship and extraordinary professional collaboration that spanned over thirty years. Whenever Dali imagined a photograph so strange that its production seemed impossible, Halsman tried to find the solution, and invariably succeeded. As Halsman explains in his postface, Dali's Mustache is the fruit of this marriage of the minds. The jointly conceived and seemingly nonsensical questions and answers reveal the gleeful humor and assumed cynicism for which Dali is famous, while the marvelous and inspired images of Dali's mustache brilliantly display Halsman's consumate skill and extraordinary inventiveness as a photographer. This combination of wit, absurdity, and the off-handedly profound is irresistible and has contributed to the enduring fascination inspired by this unique photographic interview, which has become a cult classic and valuable collector's item since its original publication in 1954. The present volume faithfully reproduces the first edition and will introduce a new generation to the irreverent humor and imaginative genius of two great artists. show less

The genius of the title, of course, being Dalí himself. I do think he was a genius -- a prolific, self-aggrandizing genius. As you would expect, parts of this are outrageous, aggravating, & confounding, at times making me feel like I'm being punked by a joke played decades ago (diary entries span 1952 to 1963) but also revealing the true artistic breadth of an ideosyncratic polymath, imo. I wouldn't necessarily call this an enjoyable read as a whole (some felt too dense for me to parse show more including some of his self-described paranoiac-critical analysis) but other sections were illuminating, entertaining, & sometimes even made me laugh. It feels mundane to call it an unusual read because what else, really, would you expect from Dalí?

"Since early childhood, I have had the vicious turn of mind of considering myself different from ordinary mortals. Here, too, I am being successful." (26 May 1953)

"We are eating muscat grapes. I have always thought that a grape held very close to the ear should make a kind of music. So at the end of the meal I have the habit of putting a grape from the bunch in my left ear. The coolness delights me, and I am already thinking of how to utilize the mystery of that delight." (22 August 1953)

https://www.salvador-dali.org/en/dali-and-gala/dali-the-total-artist/written-wor.... show less

I love Dali's painting very much and have for years. I have a signed, numbered limited edition lithograph of one of his works. That said, like many great artists, he's the consummate narcissist. I can deal with that to a certain extent. What I can't deal with is an asshole who thinks he's both a genius and a great writer, when the former is debatable and this book is proof the latter is quite the opposite. I guess the current digital self publishing craze isn't the first time in history when show more utter crap books were published. The difference is, the so-called "authors" of today using platforms' like Amazon's either don't know how to proof and edit or don't care if they look like tenth grade dropouts -- it doesn't matter, because they can still publish their books and make some sales via Amazon's program. However, in Dali's time, such did not exist, and thus it typically required a manuscript be accepted by a publisher, who at least would have likely had the book proofed and edited prior to publication, hence masking bad writing to some degree, unlike contemporary writers. I'm not sure which I like less -- self published books where the "author" was too ignorant, arrogant or cheap to hire an editor, or a publisher presumably employing editors who publishes books that, while grammatically correct, are utter shit -- simply because the author is a celebrity. But then, that still happens I guess. Pity. And I thought social media had ruined grammatical and general writing skills. I can think of several areas in which one could attribute Dali's sad literary effort, but they should be obvious, so no need to mention them. He should have continued to concentrate on his painting. Brilliant there. We're not all Renaissance men, I guess... show less

Curiouser and curiouser.....

"It is not an easy matter to hold the full attention of the public for a whole half hour. I, however, have succeeded in doing it every single day for the past twenty years. My motto is: Dali must always be talked about, even if nothing good is to be said about him".

And so I spend a few minutes more, talking about Dali; How surprisingly ridiculous and outdated the themes he addresses (including his self-analysis, especially his self-analysis) seems today. The show more daring of the day evaporates into thin post-Freudian air, and the highly convoluted style comes across neither as surreal or geniously, but just as pure manneristic self-representation. If this is about giving the emperor what the emperor demands - then he did it well I guess, and I did not want to be in that demanding a la mode crowd at the time, and even less now.

I am an avid reader, and I love Dali´s illustrations for Dante´s Divina Comedia amongst other - but this I could not stomach for the half an hour a day...
The book was on my possibly-buying list..... after skimming the local library´s copy it was taken off ...
Dali´s skill with the pen does not reach the level of the knee of the man he was when he held a brush in his hands. show less