Dali-wood

This is part 2 of a series of posts inspired by my recent family vacation to Florida. One of the hidden gems of the Sunshine State is the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersberg.  The history of the Museum's location deserves its own discussion, but suffice it to say that it was the brainchild of the local business community to establish a tourist attraction unlike any other in Florida.  Before my visit I had always thought of Dali as the silly surrealist who loved publicity and making lots of money.  In  fact, Andre Breton had coined the nickname Avida Dollars (greedy for dollars) to emphasize his passion for fame and fortune.  But having seen his work in person, I have a new found respect for not only the imagery but the masterful precision of his technique.  He was truly a great talent, even if he spent a good part of his life waisting it. 

What I also found fascinating was the reactionary nature of his politics and his ultimate expulsion from Breton's inner circle.  The Enigma of William Tell (pictured above) could be described as

his revenge against his biological father (who had thrown him out of the family home) but also as a revolt against his spiritual father (Breton).  The surrealists had alligned themselves with communism and Breton saw this portrait of a sodomized Lenin as an outrage.  In an open letter signed by many in the movement, Breton declared that because:

"Dali had on diverse occasions shown himself guilty of counter-revolutionary acts tending towards the glorification of Hitlerian fascism, the undersigned propose...to exclude him from Surrealism for being a fascist element and to fight him with every means."

Clearly Dali was a selfish opportunist, who would do almost anything to make a buck. And in 1939, he became a life long, outspoken supporter of Franco.   But his falling out with the surrealists intrigues me because what he was really guilty of (at least at the time) was not being interested in politics.  All his life he maintained that his work had no conscious political meaning or intention.  From what I can gather, his self-professed "manic obsession" with Hitler was more about the furer's peculiarity and demonic quality, than an endorsement of his policies.

This raises the age old question of what ought to be the relationship between art and politics, or the artist and the revolutionary?  Clearly in the case of Dali, there is a great deal of evidence that his politics become more reactionary (and deplorable) as he became older.  But the question still remains, is an artist responsible for addressing injustice? 

How could anyone not have taken sides when Mussolini and Hitler helped Franco destroy democracy in Spain? Isn't remaining apolitical while a civil war is happening in your own country the ultimate act of cowardice? And today, don't artists, especially prominent artists, have a responsibility to speak out against fascism in its new (and more insidious) forms.  While I believe everyone has this responsibility, I don't think that an artist's work, the product of their sweat and tears and neuroses, must always be political, or always have a "message." But it still remains to be understood what obligation the work itself has to its time and place. 

Comments

[Patrick J. Mullins]

Alain--this is a truly fine piece of writing, very balanced and thought-provoking about an important and singular 20th century artist.

[Alain]

I really appreciate the kind words Patrick. Thank you.

Previously, I had known that Dali had been a supporter of Franco toward the end of his life but going to the museum (and subsequent reading) I realize that he completely turned his back on progressive causes and was quite a bastard. But seeing his work in person one cannot fail to be impressed by the power of his vision and his mastery of diverse techniques. And I admire his ambition to take Freud's insights and transform them into an aesthetic. To a degree I think he was successful.

So how to reconcile the fascist, shameless self promoter, who betrayed several of his friends with the surrealist innovator? Clearly one cannot.

[Patrick J. Mullins]

Alain--yes, one cannot reconcile these things, and they also come in different mixtures. Balanchine held himself out of politics (at least he would not take the time to consciously concern himself with it), which is neither 'good' nor 'bad', since it may not be admirable in terms of the sense of extreme specialness, but it also does serve certain kinds of artists in conserving their energies only for their art (this might be used as an excuse by some, but this is a good example of such prodigious and magnificent output that it really can't be cast aside as a flimsy 'excuse.') But this non-involvement is also not as obviously reprehensible in the political sense as what Dali, genius but also enamoured of being publicly silly, was up to. Then there are the various forms of Hollywood involvements, which usually follow a typical model, with the occasional outrageous figure like Frank Sinatra making his way into all the White Houses he lived through. Leni Riefenstahl is possibly the weirdest example--she had to have known better if she made 'The Triumph of the Will' since it was about the material, but she chose to insulate herself into her various enormous gifts. Obviously, it was a matter of 'looking the other way,' but also 'knowing how to look the other way,' which is where a certain kind of concentration of the formidable sort she had could sense to go--this does not excuse it, even less in her case, especially since even she had to admit she saw photos later, did not either actively support but neither at all resist the regime, but could not manage not to say 'I wish the film had never been made.'

So I think it works both ways. If the more politically-oriented accuse an artist of not being politically involved (or not enough), they could perhaps be right. But the artist's focus on his/her work will allow him/her to ignore this criticism if it doesn't manage to convince. Or the artist can also go the actively cowardly or whorish path (just like anyone else, it probably ought to be added).

[Keith]

Like the post, but don't much care for Dali. Probably because Breton's anagram about sums it up, although I suppose there's room to appreciate Dali on the side of formal innovation. I always keep this bit from Adorno in mind:

“Ultimately, Salvador Dali became an exalted society painter, the Laszlo or Van Dongen of a generation that liked to think of itself as being sophisticated on the basis of a vague sense of a crisis that had in any case been stabilized for decades” (Aesthetic theory, p. 229)

There's a Sloterdijk on-line lecture here that talks up a storm about Dali and is fairly interesting.

Art as the product of, as you say, "sweat, tears, and neurosis" is a bit of a characiture, as I'm sure you're aware. Perhaps the word you're looking for in that last paragraph might be "politicized", since art is always political, but is not always politicized. I would have to side with Ranciere here, in that there is such a thing as a committed individual, but no such thing as committed art.

[Prospero]

I enjoyed reading this post, and am impressed more by Andre Breton (whose statement should serve as a check against those postmauds who think Breton was vichy) than by Dali; yet regardless of his politics, Dali's art can be fairly dazzling; and according to most sources, Dali did denounce Hitler and fascism--Franco also disassociated himself from Hitler. It might be recalled the communists and stalin-supported republicanos also did quite a number on the royalists. Dali was definitely not a PC type of artiste, tho'; in later years he supposedly kept a menagerie of animals, including some exotic cats (ocelots I believe) and often killed them by drowning 'em in his pool at his hacienda.

He was truly a great talent, even if he spent a good part of his life waisting it.

a Freudian slip, perhaps?