The masthead is in honour of the Salvador Dali exhibition, Liquid Desire, now showing at the NGV. Dali is my idea of someone setting out to live every day in creativity. Many days he musn’t have succeeded, many days he perverted the aim, and many other days, the story goes, the perversion became dearer than the aim. I like him for this, for the seriousness with which he wasn’t serious.
I also like him for the titles of his works:
Hairdresser Depressed by the Persistent Good Weather
The Average Bureaucrat
Premature Ossification of a Railway Station
Geological Justice
The Pharmacist of Ampurdan in Search of Absolutely Nothing
… and hundreds more.
I wonder if it was his titling abilities that Luis Buñuel picked up from their association in making Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) in 1929, because Buñuel went on to make two films, which — barring Nabokov’s autobiography, Speak, Memory – have the best titles of any art works:
Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie), 1972
Cet obscur objet du desir (That Obscure Object of Desire), 1977
That “That” is brilliant.
As for the NGV’s Liquid Desire, what a poor poor example with which to represent the work of the master namer.
Yes the titles are brilliant! I hadnt stopped to think about this before, but so many of his works have titles that egg you on to take a look at the painting and when you put the two together its a perfect match!
Yes, that’s it exactly. The titles egg you on to take a look. Thanks for reading.
A very good read! I am off to the exhibition in a few weeks and am now really looking forward to it, thanks to you!
You’re welcome. I went to the exhibition last night. From what I could see of it between the heads of the crowd, it looks wonderful and vast.