Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • Contact Us
  • Podcast
  • Newsletter
  • Fantasy Collecting Game
  • AMMpro

Making Sense of the Vulgar Dali

June 9, 2009 by Marion Maneker

Joan Manuel Sevillano Campalans is director of the Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation. Australia’s The Age describes his job on the eve of a National Gallery show opening in Melbourne:

salvador dali

The foundation’s mission is to promote the work of the surrealist painter who helped revolutionise art and cinema in the first half of the 20th century. One way it does this is through co-curating scholarly Dali shows in prestigious international museums, which recently have included MoMA in New York and London’s Tate Modern.

But much of the foundation’s work is also about undoing the crasser image of Dali as the performing seal of the art world. Dali’s incessant mugging for the cameras and eager commercialisation of his work once led Andre Breton, one of his early surrealist pals, to dismiss him as “Avida Dollars”— an anagram of his name.

“So what we have been trying at the foundation is to tell the world that these two aspects are complementary. We need to classify and investigate both of these with the same rigour,” says Campalans, who argues that a better way of viewing the vulgar Dali with Dali the accomplished artist is to see him as the world’s “first rock star”, whose pioneering self-promotion paved the way for Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons.

Victim of the Spanish Tall Poppy Inquisition? (The Age)

More from Art Market Monitor

  • Britain Hasn't Got TalentBritain Hasn't Got Talent
  • Artelligence Podcast: Joan Miró’s Constellations at Acquavella GalleriesArtelligence Podcast: Joan Miró’s Constellations at Acquavella Galleries
  • Dali Books and Objects Generate Heat in LondonDali Books and Objects Generate Heat in London
  • Sigmar Polke Is Too Big for MoMASigmar Polke Is Too Big for MoMA
  • Catherine Grenier Is New Head of Giacometti FoundationCatherine Grenier Is New Head of Giacometti Foundation
  • Polke Fights from Under Richter’s Shadow, Schachter Sheds the Light at Christie’sPolke Fights from Under Richter’s Shadow, Schachter Sheds the Light at Christie’s
  • Print
  • Tweet

Filed Under: Artists

Advertise on Art Market Monitor with Nectar Ads

Top Posts

  • Christie's $30m Rothko from 1954 for May
  • What's Peter Halley's Market Telling Us?
  • Tony Podesta's Secret Art Buying
  • Barney Ebsworth Dies at 83
  • MoMA Gets an Ofili from Cohen; Bradford from Griffen; Hendricks from Dubin
  • Global Cities Are Aging as Young Get Priced Out
  • Vernissage TV: Art Cologne 2018
  • Heritage Comic Auction in May Aims for Record
  • Podcast
  • Newsletter


  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • Art Loans
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
Advertise on Art Market Monitor