Paru le 03/11/2012 | Relié 279 pages
Tout public
translated from the french by David Radzinowicz
Salvador Dalí is a famous artist, but, above all, he embodies a myth. A very twentieth-century myth, typical of an age that knew how to create legendary figures, placing them on a pedestal. Dalí did his best to help in the creation of this myth, dedicating his whole public existence to the tireless construction of his image. A self-proclaimed genius, throughout his life he molded his personality, relentlessly honing it into a paragon of the great modern artist. But eccentricity and an immense talent alone could never have created a myth as pervasive and as enduring as the figure of Dalí. The contribution of the epoch in which he lived is also of paramount importance. He is the artist who best synthesizes and exemplifies the aspirations and utopian dreams, the angst and catastrophes of the age, and his life formed a whole with his oeuvre : together they acted as a seismograph botte of his inner self and of the spirit of his era.
In this volume, author Catherine Grenier offers a fresh analysis of the work of one of the most popular and significant contributors to twentieth-century art. She invites us to rediscover this modern-day Don Quixóte in the light of this fascinating if complex period, while also examining his continuing relevance today. Her study concludes with a chapter dedicated to Dalí resonance in the work of contemporary artists, from Jeff Koons and Annette Messager to Ryan Trecartin, Damien Hirst, and Jeff Wall.
Catherine Grenier, a respected art historian and associate director of the Musée National d'Art Moderne-CCI at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, has published extensively, including The Possible Life of Christian Boltanski (MFA Publications, 2009), Christian Boltanski (Flammarion, 2010), and Annette Messager (Flammarion, 2012).
