Still Warm Sand (2003).
Iron Grasshopper (2006).
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The fantastic art archive
Category: {surrealism}
Surrealism
The persistence of DNA
The Persistence of Memory (1931).
Forensic scientist uses DNA to explore Dalí’s bizarre genius
Samples taken from nasal feeding tubes could also help to authenticate works
James Randerson in San Antonio
The Guardian, Saturday, February 24, 2007
IT IS LIKE something from a surrealist still life—a hat, glasses, moustache and toilet seat. This is the collection of belongings that forensic scientist Michael Rieders was offered when he put the word out that he was trying to track down Salvador Dalí’s DNA.
“I have been fascinated by Dalí and his artwork since I was around 11 years old,” he said. “I found it hard to believe that a person could come up with such exotic, bizarre art.”
By tracking down Dalí’s DNA he felt he could get closer to the surrealist artist. But more than that, he hoped that if he could characterise Dalí’s DNA fingerprint, he could use it to help authenticate the handful of paintings and artworks that are not signed but are claimed by some to have been painted by the Spanish master.
Sculptural collage: Eduardo Paolozzi
Michelangelo’s ‘David’ (1987).
In a similar vein to the dismembered Soviet monument in the previous post, there’s the sculpture of the late, great Eduardo Paolozzi (1924–2005). The giant head of Invention is especially impressive when seen in situ outside London’s Design Museum, its pieces separated by the words of a Leonardo da Vinci quotation: “Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does Nature, because in her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.”
It should be noted, in light of another recent post, that Paolozzi was associated with New Worlds when the magazine was at its height, credited (jokingly) as “Aeronautics Advisor” even though he had little or nothing to do with the publication aside from being friends with contributor JG Ballard. There’s a great Studio International discussion here from 1971 between Paolozzi, Ballard and critic Frank Whitford, in which they talk around the subjects of Surrealism, violence in life and the arts, and other typically Ballardian concerns.
Invention.
Portrait of Richard Rogers (1988).
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Revenant volumes: Bob Haberfield, New Worlds and others
• JG Ballard book covers
• Ballard on Modernism
The art of Nicola Verlato
There’s no place like home (2006).
Now here’s an artist—Italian, works in NYC—who makes most painters look like they’re slacking. No need to post more tiny jpegs when you can go to his site and see his extraordinary tempest-tossed cowgirls at a larger size. And there’s more oil-on-canvas mayhem at the Stux Gallery, New York.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The fantastic art archive
The art of Stephen Aldrich
Take Me to Your Leda (2000).
The City at the End of Time (2005).
I wrote about the history of the engaving collage in Sandoz in the Rain: the Life and Art of Wilfried Sätty, an article for Strange Attractor #2 (2005). I hadn’t come across Stephen Aldrich’s work at the time, if I had I would have mentioned him as being one of the artists continuing in this style after Sätty. You can see more of Aldrich’s work at the Foley Gallery, New York, and on Artnet.
Stephen Aldrich was born in Westfield, MA in 1947. In 1989 Aldrich began to explore the possibility of making collages from 19th Century illustrations and (Fredrick) Sommer, always one to “master the advantages”, asked Aldrich to cut engraved illustrations from text books in anatomy. This made it possible for Sommer to create hundreds of collages, and the medium became his principle form of artistic expression throughout the last decade of his life. During that time Aldrich continued to make his own collages with Sommer’s enthusiastic support and encouragement, and joined in a collaborative partnership with photographer Walton Mendelson to produce “collagraphs” (collages photographed) which were first exhibited at Turner/Krull Gallery in 1992. The partnership with Mendelson ended in 2002.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The fantastic art archive
Previously on { feuilleton }
• The art of Shinro Ohtake