Narcissism can be described psychoanalytically as a complex.
Dali, who regarded his own sexual impotence (ED) as an enlarged complex, may have felt some sympathy for the story of Narcissus. From a psychoanalytic point of view, Dali’s many activities as a comical genius character that caused a sensation in the public may have been a way to compensate for his own impotence and lack of confidence.
Transfiguration review – a hideous horror show you’ll never forget
O livier de Sagazan’s Transfiguration, a performance first created 20 years ago, has to be one of the most original, incredible things you’re likely to see. That doesn’t mean you’ll like it.
The French painter, sculptor and performer takes his audience on a terrifying journey into a tortured artist’s psyche. It’s a shriek-out-loud horror show, the antichrist’s claymation. He’s up to some freaky voodoo, kneeling centre stage, stoking the sparks and smoke of a fire and chanting, ready to summon spirits.
But De Sagazan himself is to metamorphose into those spirits, a succession of creatures, demons and bogeymen. Smearing clay over his face, the sculptor is now the sculpture. He dots two blank, black pupils on his closed eyelids, a stroke of red for a mouth. As more layers are added, the distortion grows, the weirdness escalates. De Sagazan transforms into birds and beasts. He is a face-melted monster, a cadaverous grotesque, a peat bog man come back to life.
It’s truly visceral, as the artist tears open his own muddy flesh. He completely erases himself, applying thick daubs of clay until he has smoothed his head into a blank orb. It’s suffocating to watch him obliterate his airways, only to violently stab at his eyes and his gash of a mouth. In this world the body is an ugly, troublesome place.
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Each new mask is a desperate attempt at creation, yet already in decay. A man may try to remake himself, but he cannot escape himself. It feels like watching De Sagazan struggling with his very existence, heading towards a breakdown – not necessarily an enjoyable experience. It’s indulgent, alienating and pretty hideous at times, but a genuinely startling spectacle.
- At Sadler’s Wells, London, until 11 January. Part of the London international mime festival, which runs until 3 February.
The transfiguration of the pomegranate
Sometimes I look at some of the artists I follow on Instagram and wonder if they ever get bored, painting the same type of thing day after day. If I paint a piece of fruit today, tomorrow I want to start a line drawing of a man wearing a mask in the form of a fox’s head. Variety, as they say, is the spice of life.
So the idea of following a seven day online painting project to produce a series of variations on a theme was a little outside the box for me, but that’s exactly the point of Tara Leaver‘s challenge. I started with a straightforward painting of a pomegranate, just to ease myself into it:
My plan was to move from this towards an abstracted version of the fruit but, switching media to charcoal and pastel, I produced something more conventional on the second day:
A fresh approach was needed, so I put together a collage next, just to see what would happen:
That seemed to do the trick, and by the end of the week I was more relaxed and, after a short detour into a painting of quinces, I finally reached the rather more abstract pomegranates at the top of this post. The full sequence can be found on Instagram. As I wrote to Tara at the end of the seven days, it was an exhilarating experience. Exploring different ways to approach a single subject every day for a week was astonishingly liberating. I felt no compulsion to produce ‘finished’ work even though I was posting it on Instagram. The journey was the key, empowering me to experiment. Others, it seemed, had the same experience. Tara was the perfect companion on this journey: her admission that her own theme had gone somewhat awry but she was going to enjoy it anyway inspired and relaxed many of us, I felt.
If, like me, you like to flit from subject to subject, I can wholeheartedly recommend a short period of concentration on one, using different media, pushing your style in new directions, not worrying about the outcome as much as enjoying the process. If we can do that, it would appear, an ‘end result’ suddenly makes itself apparent.
Dali’s influences
Gala
The Virgin of Portorigato
Gala Dali, whose real name was Elena Ivanovna Diakonova and whose roots were in Russia, was the source of Salvador Dali’s artistic ideas.
When they met, Gala was already married to a poet named Paul Éluard.
However, Gala and Salvador were united by the love of Salvador, who was ardently attracted to her charms. From then on, Gala fully supported her husband’s activities as a manager.
She was also an excellent writer and had the talent to make her book, “The Autobiography of Salvador Dali,” a bestseller.
Gala appears frequently in Dali’s works. In “The Virgin of Portorigato,” for example, the artist’s deep affection for her is evident in the way he depicts his wife as the Virgin Mary.
Luis Buñuel
The artist also had a close relationship with Luis Buñuel, who collaborated with Dali on the film Dogs of Andalusia.
The film is a realization of events in a dream; there is no clear plot or storyline, just a series of disjointed events.
From the film “The Dog of Andalusia
Sigmund Freud
Dali had read Freud’s “The Judgment of Dreams” and other works, and he added his own interpretations of Freud’s examples and his own sexual anxieties.
Freud believed that unconscious desires, which are trapped under the conscious mind, emerge through dreams.
Based on this belief, Dali reinterpreted his own dreams and recomposed them as paintings.
Encounter Surrealist Artists at TRiCERA ART
Artists from 126 countries have exhibited their works at TRiCERA ART.
Among them, there are many works that can be called surrealist, which were strongly influenced by Dali. In this issue, we would like to introduce three popular surrealist artists at TRiCERA ART to the readers of this article.
M. Febriandy
M. Febriandy is a painter from Indonesia. He paints portraits with a cardboard-like texture, which he describes as cardboard artistic, functional and fashionable philosophy.
Le jeune Macron
W 50.00cm x H 60.00cm / ¥161,800
Cathy Labudak
Cathy Labudak has attracted attention for her eccentric and humorous works. By combining trivial ideas that come to her mind in her daily life with classical paintings, she produces many works with a strange surrealism.
Eye Opener
W 40.60cm x H 50.80cm / ¥40,400
Yiannis Roussakis
Roussakis is a collage artist from Greece who creates fragmented but ultimately coherent works that seem to tell a story.
His technique of cohabiting unusual motifs within the same picture plane embodies the surrealism established by Dali.
Maritime Museum
W 100.00cm x H 100.00cm / JPY 199,900
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