2018.08.03 加拉如何帮助建立萨尔瓦多-达利的品牌

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How Gala helped build the Salvador Dalí brand
Their relationship was seen as unhealthy and unequal. It’s a view that needs rethinking

Aug 3rd 2018 (Updated Aug 6th 2018)

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By Tom Graham

In 1929 Salvador Dalí met Gala, the woman who would become his wife, muse, agent and collaborator. He was young, only 25, and just starting out as an artist. She was 35 and married with a child. In early photos, Salvador Dalí could almost be mistaken for Gala’s child. But over time, the balance shifted. He aged dramatically, growing puffier, rheumier and more ludicrous by the year. She, by contrast, was a glacier: unchanging, coolly elegant. People sniped that there was something vampiric about their 53-year relationship.

The art historian John Richardson described Gala as a “demonic dominatrix” who turned her husband into “as much a monster of hype and megalomania as she was.” André Breton, founder of Surrealism, thought Gala was a corrosive influence on the many artists she befriended. In their accounts, and others, Gala comes across as a parasite who hitched her ambition to Dalí and drove him to become a caricature of himself. Poor Dalí, they suggested, was bewitched. Lurid anecdotes abounded. Dalí had bought Gala a castle in Púbol, Catalonia, where she entertained her lovers. He had to get written permission to visit.


An exhibition at the National Art Museum of Catalonia, in Barcelona, tries to piece together Gala’s side of the story, recasting her as not simply a muse, but a writer, conceptual artist and performer ahead of her time. It displays a selection of Dalí’s paintings, photographs of them together, and some of Gala’s letters to family, friends and lovers, as well as a diary that was recently unearthed from her castle in Púbol. The diary is self-consciously literary, and a letter to the artist René Crevel reveals that Gala claimed to be working on a novel – though no manuscript has been found.

The idea is that while Dalí was the face of the enterprise, Gala propelled it. Dalí certainly recognised her contribution, signing some of his paintings “Gala Salvador Dalí” (which gave the exhibition its title). Can Gala, having produced no art that we know of, really be considered an artist? Perhaps not. But this exhibition does show how much Salvador Dalí – and his art – depended on her forceful personality, for better or worse.


Salvador Dalí, “One Second Before Awakening from a Dream Provoked by the Flight of a Bee Around a Pomegranate” (1944)

Dalí made hundreds of drawings and paintings of Gala. That he worshipped her is clear. He was sexually fascinated by her but, by his own account, was afraid of sex (he was allegedly a virgin when he met Gala). So he tolerated, and perhaps even encouraged, her affairs. Ian Gibson, Dalí’s biographer, has argued that he was pathologically timid and developed an exhibitionist persona as a protective device.

© Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2018


Salvador Dalí, “The Madonna of Portlligat” (1949)

This painting is based on Piero della Francesca’s “Madonna and Child with Angels and Six Saints”, with Gala as Madonna. No one could describe Gala as virginal, or maternal for that matter. She neglected the child she’d had with her first husband, the French poet Paul Eluard (she had no children with Dalí and had to have a hysterectomy in 1936 due to complications with uterine fibroids). Still, Dalí often tried to reconcile his art and lifestyle with his Catholicism. He took this painting along to an audience with Pope Pius XII, who was apparently rather taken with it. Salvador and Gala has to get special dispensation from the Pope to marry because of Gala’s previous marriage.

© Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2018


Salvador Dalí, “Gala Placidia. Galatea of the Spheres” (1952)

Dalí enjoyed improbable mash-ups. Here, Renaissance art meets atomic theory. After Hiroshima, Dalí became fascinated by nuclear physics and the idea that matter was, no matter how solid it seemed, in essence discontinuous, made up of distinct atomic particles. This painting depicts a bust of Gala through a matrix of spheres suspended in space. The vanishing point, where the spheres flow to infinity, is her mouth. In Greek mythology, the sculptor Pygmalion falls in love with Galatea, a beautiful statue he’s created, after Aphrodite brings it to life.

© Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2018


Salvador Dalí, “Portrait of Gala with Two Chops Balanced on Her Shoulder” (1934)

Sometimes, a little boy appears in Dalí’s paintings. In “The Spectre of Sex Appeal”, the boy looks at a hideous, propped-up assemblage of festering flesh. And here he is again, in an image where Gala basks happily in the sun, a pair of lamb chops on her shoulder. In his book “The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí”, published in 1942, Dalí satirised people’s attempts to read the painting. “The meaning of this, as I later learned, was that instead of eating her, I had decided to eat a pair of raw chops…The chops were in effect the expiatory victims of an abortive sacrifice – like Abraham’s ram, and William Tell’s apple.”

© Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2018


André Caillet, “Gala with Elsa Schiaparelli’s shoe-hat inspired by a Salvador Dalí design” (1938)

The lamb chop was subsequently made into a hat by Elsa Schiaparelli, an Italian designer. Another Schiaparelli creation – again from a design by Dalí – was this shoe-hat. With her fashionable clothes, her penchant for fluffy toys, tarot cards, glass eyes and bird skulls, Gala was a kind of female dandy, beloved by fashion designers.

© FUNDACIÓ GALA-SALVADOR DALÍ, FIGUERES, 2018


Eric Schaal, “Salvador Dalí and Gala working on the ‘Dream of Venus’ pavilion” (1939)

Dalí fed the idea that he and Gala collaborated with each other, but there’s no evidence that Gala ever told Dalí what to paint. In the male-dominated Surrealist movement, though, Gala more than held her ground. A photo shows her playing chess with the Surrealists, the only female in view. She and Dalí were only too happy to be photographed together: the exhibitionism of their “private” life was itself a kind of performance art. On that project, at least, they worked as equals.

© Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2018

Gala Salvador Dalí. A Room of One’s Own in Púbol National Art Museum, Catalonia, until October 14th



加拉如何帮助建立萨尔瓦多-达利的品牌
他们的关系被认为是不健康和不平等的。这是一个需要重新思考的观点

2018年8月3日（2018年8月6日更新）


作者：汤姆-格雷厄姆

1929年，萨尔瓦多-达利遇到了加拉，这个女人后来成为他的妻子、缪斯女神、经纪人和合作者。当时他很年轻，只有25岁，刚刚开始成为一名艺术家。她当时35岁，已婚并有一个孩子。在早期的照片中，萨尔瓦多-达利几乎可以被误认为是加拉的孩子。但随着时间的推移，平衡发生了变化。他急剧衰老，越来越浮肿，越来越风湿，一年比一年可笑。相比之下，她就像一块冰川：不变的，冷静的，优雅的。人们讽刺说，他们53年的关系中存在着某种吸血鬼式的东西。

艺术史学家约翰-理查森（John Richardson）将加拉描述为一个 "恶魔般的支配者"，她将她的丈夫变成了 "和她一样的炒作和自大狂的怪物"。超现实主义的创始人安德烈-布勒东（André Breton）认为加拉对她结交的许多艺术家是一种腐蚀性的影响。在他们和其他人的描述中，加拉是一个寄生虫，她把自己的野心搭在达利身上，促使他成为自己的一个漫画。他们认为，可怜的达利被迷惑了。荒唐的轶事比比皆是。达利在加泰罗尼亚的普博尔为加拉买了一座城堡，她在那里招待她的情人。他必须得到书面许可才能参观。


在巴塞罗那的加泰罗尼亚国家艺术博物馆举办的展览试图将加拉的故事拼凑起来，将她重新塑造成不仅仅是一个缪斯女神，而是一个领先于她的时代的作家、概念艺术家和表演者。展览展示了达利的部分画作、他们在一起的照片、加拉写给家人、朋友和恋人的一些信件，以及最近从她在普博尔的城堡中出土的一本日记。这本日记具有自觉的文学性，一封写给艺术家René Crevel的信显示，加拉声称正在创作一部小说--尽管没有找到手稿。

这个想法是，虽然达利是这个企业的代言人，但加拉推动了这个企业。达利当然承认她的贡献，在他的一些画作上签署了 "加拉-萨尔瓦多-达利"（这也是展览的标题）。据我们所知，加拉没有创作过任何艺术作品，她真的可以被认为是一位艺术家吗？也许不能。但这个展览确实显示了萨尔瓦多--以及他的艺术--在多大程度上依赖于她强势的个性，无论好坏。


萨尔瓦多-达利，《蜜蜂绕着石榴飞行引发的梦境中醒来前的一秒钟》（1944年）。

达利为加拉画了几百幅画和油画。他对她的崇拜是显而易见的。他对她很着迷，但根据他自己的说法，他害怕性（据说他遇到加拉时还是个处女）。所以他容忍，甚至可能鼓励她的风流韵事。达利的传记作者伊恩-吉布森（Ian Gibson）认为，他有病态的胆怯，并发展出一个暴露狂的角色作为保护手段。

© 萨尔瓦多-达利，Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2018


萨尔瓦多-达利，《Portlligat的圣母》(1949)

这幅画是根据皮耶罗-德拉-弗朗西斯卡的 "有天使和六位圣徒的圣母和儿童 "创作的，加拉是圣母。没有人可以把加拉说成是处女，或者说是母性的。她忽视了她与第一任丈夫，法国诗人保罗-艾吕雅所生的孩子（她与达利没有孩子，并且由于子宫肌瘤的并发症，不得不在1936年进行了子宫切除术）。尽管如此，达利还是经常试图将他的艺术和生活方式与他的天主教信仰相协调。他带着这幅画去觐见教皇庇护十二世，教皇显然对这幅画相当满意。萨尔瓦多和加拉必须得到教皇的特别许可才能结婚，因为加拉以前有过婚姻。

© 萨尔瓦多-达利，Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2018


萨尔瓦多-达利，"加拉-普拉西迪亚。球体的加拉蒂亚》（1952年）。

达利喜欢不可能的混搭。在这里，文艺复兴时期的艺术遇到了原子理论。广岛事件后，达利开始着迷于核物理学和物质的想法，无论它看起来多么坚固，本质上都是不连续的，由不同的原子粒子组成。这幅画通过悬浮在空间中的球体矩阵，描绘了加拉的半身像。消失点，即球体流向无限的地方，是她的嘴。在希腊神话中，雕塑家皮格马利翁爱上了加拉蒂亚，他创造的一个美丽的雕像，在阿芙罗狄蒂把它变成了生命。

© 萨尔瓦多-达利，Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2018年


萨尔瓦多-达利，《肩上扛着两根鸡腿的加拉肖像》(1934)

有时，达利的画中会出现一个小男孩。在《性欲的幽灵》中，这个男孩看着一个狰狞的、被支撑起来的溃烂的肉体的组合。而在这里，他又出现在加拉快乐地沐浴在阳光下的画面中，她的肩上有一对羊排。在1942年出版的《萨尔瓦多-达利的秘密生活》一书中，达利讽刺了人们阅读这幅画的企图。"我后来知道，这其中的含义是，我没有吃她，而是决定吃一对生羊排......羊排实际上是一个流产的牺牲品--就像亚伯拉罕的公羊和威廉-泰尔的苹果。"

© 萨尔瓦多-达利，Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, VEGAP, Barcelona, 2018年


André Caillet，"Gala与Elsa Schiaparelli的鞋帽，灵感来自萨尔瓦多-达利的设计"（1938年）。

这块羊排后来被意大利设计师Elsa Schiaparelli做成了帽子。希亚帕雷利的另一个作品--同样来自达利的设计--就是这顶鞋帽。加拉穿着时尚，喜欢毛绒玩具、塔罗牌、玻璃眼睛和鸟的头骨，她是一种女性花花公子，受到时装设计师的喜爱。

© Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, figueres, 2018


埃里克-沙尔，"萨尔瓦多-达利和加拉在'维纳斯之梦'展馆工作"（1939）。

达利养成了他和加拉相互合作的想法，但没有证据表明加拉曾经告诉达利要画什么。不过，在男性主导的超现实主义运动中，加拉更多的是坚持自己的立场。一张照片显示她与超现实主义者下棋，她是唯一的女性。她和达利非常乐意一起拍照：他们 "私人 "生活的展示主义本身就是一种行为艺术。至少在这个项目上，他们是平等合作的。

© Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2018年

Gala Salvador Dalí. 一个人的房间》在Púbol国家艺术博物馆，加泰罗尼亚，直到10月14日