NEWS: By Golly, I'm Jolly for Dalí!

CULTURE: By Golly, I'm Jolly for Dalí!

The Philadelphia Museum of Art will be hosting the first Salvador Dalí retrospective in almost sixty years. Over two-hundred works will be shown and the city is hoping $2.6 million dollars in marketing will help bring people to the city, if not the museum.

Dalí the Comic Book, Dalí the Action Figure, Dalí the Flamethrower…

Of course, each balloon will resemble an erect penis with ants crawling out of its tip.

I hate to break this news to Gail, but teenagers and college students enjoy Dalí because it reminds them of drugs and sex.

Yet, there is something breathtaking about watching an entire city commodify surrealism—as though the surrealists knew, deep down, that high school art teachers would pack disenfranchised students into broken down buses to see a painting called, "The Great Masturbator."

I'm also dispatching Ninja-Pirates to Philly as the original source article uses the phrase "Dalí Trolly" without irony in its title.

This is too amusing. Great write-up.

[Edited on Dec 08, 2004 by Sorcha]

Will there be tailgating outside on opening day?

Now how come the i with the acute accent persists when edited on a Mac and other special characters like the heart don't?






[Edited on Dec 08, 2004 by alpo]

I hope "Girl Auto-Sodomized By Her Own Chastity" is plastered everywhere.

i always thought René Magritte was a much better painter and surrealist.
funny how half the people and their puppy who name Dali as one of their favourite artists never heard of magritte or breton.

HELL FOR YOU!!!

You don't know how hard I wrestled with demons to keep from making that reference.

You don't know the painful agony that I went through, the pouring of sweat and involuntary twitches in my eye...

DAMN YOU!!!



[Edited on Dec 08, 2004 by christopher]

I didn't start it!! I think Alpo made the reference first, but he edited when I was working on the poster
Someone had to do it

[Edited on Dec 08, 2004 by pygmy]

*whistles innocently*

I will accept responsibility for this, though:

Hello, Andre
Well, Hello Gala
It's so nice to be back home where I belong
You're looking swell, Marcel
I can tell, Pablo
You're still glowin', you're still crowin'
You're still goin' strong
For the band's playin'
One of my old favorite songs from way back when
So bridge that gap, fellas
Find me an empty lap, fellas
Dali'll never go away again

Okay, it's really funny if you actually picture him singing it. Really. Trust me. And dancing and flirting with all his colleagues, like in the movie. with his (presumably) lispy spanish accent. Really.

[Edited on Dec 08, 2004 by pygmy]

So promoting art appreciation is a bad thing ... ?

Oh gods, me too!!!! Maybe that will be the valentines ballon!!

Seriously, Dali would've loved it- he was such an attention whore, that guy. I dont thing Magrite or Breton were necessarily better painters,Dali was very talented, but I think that Dalis imagery is just so plain bizarre that it tends to overshout some of the other great Surrealist painters of the time.
One of my Art History teachers hated him, but I think thats just cause he was secretly jealous.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art promoted the Manet and Degas exhibits the last two years the same way and reaped huge benefits. Hell, the summer of 2003 was the summer of Degas around here. And, again, this is a bad thing?

In my book art appreciation = good.

It's the first major exhibition in the US since 1941, and it's the only one in the country. Of course they're going to advertise it any way they can because that's what brings in the people. But you have to get all snooty because someone writes an article with 'Dali Trolley' in the title?

Don't they run advertisements on cabs/buses/trolleys where you come from? I'd much rather see an ad for an exclusive art retrospective than the latest J Lo piece of crap film or how to save money on your car insurance.

Maybe that's just me.

oh i didn't mean to imply that he was in any way a bad painter, i just dislike that he is such a massive figurehead for surrealism.
i love surrealism and there's so many wonderfull surrealist painters yet a lot of people don't even know anyone besides dali, sometimes it kind of seems like dali is the whole of surrealism and i don't like that very much.

Just as a technical note, Andre Breton is generally not considered an artist in the oil/canvas sense, but was certainly an inspiration to most of the artists of the genre. His works of fiction, and many essays, were not specifically intended as art either. In a broad sense, Breton could be considered an artist whose canvas was the mind.

edit

[Edited on Dec 08, 2004 9:31AM]