#in voluptate mors

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Philippe Halsman, Dali Atomicus, 1948 (top)

Philippe Halsman, In Voluptate Mors, 1951

Salvador Dali, Atomic Leda, 1949

[mmmmalo]

In revisiting Remele, a prolific plagiarist, the standout element to me was the object of her art heist: a paraphrase of the famous Silence of the Lambs poster, depicting Clarice Starling's shocked face with her mouth covered by a moth. I watched the film and looked over some reviews to sift for parallels and found 2 points from Roger Ebert written 10 years apart. From his 2001 retrospective review:

Compromised confidence hits even before the character select screen: MSPAR asserts that drifting episodically from friend to friend is "the only way to live", a phrase that to me undercuts the cool enthusiasm with a trace of resignation to a life of scrambling for survival. Remele then suggests, repeatedly, that her own air of confidence is overstated: there is an instant game over if you call her work derivative. Remele is not worried about the plagiarism charges, but she should probably get back at that reporter just in case. Her successful adaptation to new problems twice compels Remele to muse that she would switch careers, were she not so good at art -- a thought that perhaps betrays doubt about her abilities. After co-murdering a purpleblood, MSPAR wonders aloud if they can "interpret [their] adrenaline shakes as euphoric overload", and Remele replies "me too!".

So Remele and Clarice share a lingering self-doubt, doubtlessly worsened by working in an environment that constantly questions their legitimacy. Of course Remele *is* an actual plagiarizer (the moon's a pale thief), which makes this all a little funny, but in Alternia's bad-faith rhetorical context, undeniable illegitimacy can be apprehended as insult instead of fact. Moving on to Ebert's original 1991 review:

The Death's Head Moth on the SotL poster is, among other things, an emblem of such "unwanted male attention". The skull on its back composed of nude women, borrowing the arrangement of Salvador Dali and Phillipe Halsman's "Voluptate Mors". Within the film this association is drawn by juxtaposition: while the moth skull is being unveiled, a man with an intense stare hits on Clarice; the moth's cocoon is discovered in a dead woman's throat as men photograph her nude body; and of course the cocoon was inserted into her throat by a killer who skins victims to create a woman suit -- that last point, denoting a predatory female impersonator, leads to the film's lasting transphobic reputation, despite the film's glib dismissal of Buffalo Bill as a sort of trans-trender for an additional layer of illegitimacy. Anyway,

On Remele's duplicate, the Death's Head Moth is replaced by a winged purple blood. This catches my interest along two axes:

Remele's art gallery is primarily patronized by purple bloods. Their presence on the art piece could imply that their gazes trouble Remele in a manner akin to the gazes that follow Clarice? The association of the audience (via diegetic entities aligned with the 4th wall) with a phallicized gaze runs through Homestuck back to at least Problem Sleuth... the SotL reference seems a decent enough manner to pepper that motif into a Hiveswap context. Plus the audience's gaze tends to be racialized with Homestuck, so the hip-hop affecting purplebloods capture that quality as well.

Much like in Silence of the Lambs, the moth/butterfly's metamorphosis is leveraged as a transgender allegory in Homestuck. Not relitigating that here, read Slurquest. But with that in mind, and considering how deeply Remele's stereotype Vriska was interwoven with Egbert's gender question, I'm inclined to think the constant questioning of Remele's legitimacy invokes transphobic as well as misogynistic policing

That's about all I can get out of the comparison. Good night all

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In Voluptate Mors, 1951

Philippe Halsman

[mesillusionssousecstasy]

"In Voluptate Mors" by Philippe halsman - Epreuve argentique - 1951 // Le lien entre érotisme et morbidité est au coeur du processus créatif de Salvador Dali depuis ses premières oeuvres. Avec In Voluptate Mors, Halsman répond à ce intérêt. A partir d'un dessin de Dali, il reconstruit une tête de mort avec les corps nus de sept modèles vivants. Dali, assis sur une chaise d'enfant et habillé en dandy, ne regarde pas la mort souriante et défie la tentation. 

(My photography - Sous Ecstasy)

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Salvador Dali and Philippe Halsman, Voluptate Mors, 1951

[aiiaiiiyo]

Salvador Dali, In Voluptate, Mors . 1951 photo by: Philippe Halsman Check this blog!

[isabot1234-blog]

Gestalt Principles

Closure

In Voluptate Mors, Salvador Dalí & Philippe Halsman, 1951.

can’t post pic because of breasts, but here are others in same vein 

Today And Tomorrow, 1908 by HM Rose.

Die geheimnisvolle Badezelle, circa 1905-1910.

http://mag.metamythic.com/metamorphic-skull-illusions/

Common Fate

pic by me

Figure-Ground relationship

Humans of NY FB June 20

Humans of NY FB Aug 27

Good Continuation

Gaboon viper in wild - camouflaging

pic by Heinrich Van Den Berg

Proximity

Mockup of Tesla Model 3 UI. Shows some related elements grouped together, others overlapping, etc.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/03/curious-about-teslas-unique-model-3-in-car-ui-check-out-this-mock-up/

Similarity

Flounder, South Carolina Aquarium

https://scaquarium.org/our-animals/southern-flounder/

Uniform Connectedness

The Ableton Push uses color coordination (as does Ableton) to help visually separate which ‘track’ is which sound. The push then denotes the ‘root key’ in the same color. Each colored key is C in this example, going up or down an octave based on height. This helps keep track of where you are in the scale, and makes playing notes an octave up or down easier, you just transpose the pattern.

pics by me

[caveartfair]

The Story behind the Surreal Photograph of Salvador Dalí and Three Flying Cats

Dalí Atomicus, 1948. Philippe Halsman "Philippe Halsman, Astonish Me!" at Musée de l'Elysée, 2014

Before photographer Philippe Halsman and Surrealist Salvador Dalí settled on the idea of tossing three cats into the air for the photograph Dalí Atomicus (1948), the Spanish artist suggested they blow up a duck using dynamite. Considering it took 26 attempts to pull off the picture of a levitating Dalí in a chaotic airborne scene, Halsman’s insistence against the first idea was decidedly the best course of action.

Halsman, a mid-century portrait photographer, sought to lift the veil on his subjects, however briefly, to reveal their innermost being. “A true photographer wants to try to capture the real essence of a human being,” he once famously said. But capturing the essence of Dalí was a complex task. Over nearly four decades, Halsman photographed the artist on many occasions, spurring the most iconic black-and-white portraits of the Surrealist.

Dalí Atomicus was an early example of the practice Halsman called “jumpology.” To capture the true spirit of his subjects—primarily celebrities and public figures who were accustomed to having a lens trained on them—he began asking them to take a jump after each photo session. “When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears,” he once explained.

Atomic Leda, 1949. Salvador Dalí Teatro Museo Dalí, Figueres

In Voluptate Mors, 1951. Philippe Halsman °CLAIR Galerie

But years before he convinced Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Richard Nixon, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to each take a leap of faith, he staged the outlandish (and, ultimately, duckless) shoot of Dalí. The artist appears suspended in the air amid three flying cats, a stream of water, and floating furniture.

When Dalí and Halsman became close friends in the 1940s, Halsman had experienced a great deal of hardship in his life. The photographer, born in Riga in 1906, was falsely convicted of killing his father in 1928, and he was sentenced to four years in prison, where he contracted tuberculosis. He was released two years early, following a successful campaign led by his sister, Liouba, which included a letter by German physicist Albert Einstein. Einstein would come to Halsman’s aid again in 1940 after the photographer had established his career in Paris, obtaining a U.S. visa for Halsman in order to help him escape the Nazi invasion of France. (Halsman’s deeply emotional portrait of Einstein, taken seven years later, would become one of his most famous works.)

Grace Kelly Jump, 1954. Philippe Halsman °CLAIR Galerie

Marylin Monroe Jump, 1959. Philippe Halsman °CLAIR Galerie

Edward Steichen, 1959. Philippe Halsman °CLAIR Galerie

Eva Marie Saint, 1954. Philippe Halsman °CLAIR Galerie

The first portrait that Halsman took of Dalí in 1941, atop a New York roof, cemented their friendship. It led to bodies of work such as the absurdist (and aptly titled) book Dalí’s Mustache (1954), featuring 36 views of his collaborator’s famous waxed mustache. Other compositions, which placed Dalí in uncanny worlds not unlike those of his own imagination, took time and painstaking detail to pull off. In Popcorn Nude (1949), Dalí thrusts his leg into a high kick as popcorn kernels and baguettes explode around a nude model. And to create In Voluptas Mors (1951), it reportedly took Halsman three hours to arrange the women’s bodies so that they formed the illusion of a skull.

Dalí Atomicus also required intense preparation. Halsman drew his inspiration from the artist’s painting Leda Atomica (1949)—the work, which Dalí began in 1945, is pictured in the back-right of the scene. But unlike the painting, he wished to have all elements of the photograph hang in the balance.

Philippe Halsman, Dali Atomicus, 1948. © Philippe Halsman/Magnum Photos.

The original, unretouched version of the photo reveals its secrets: An assistant held up the chair on the left side of the frame, wires suspended the easel and the painting, and the footstool was propped up off the floor. But there was no hidden trick to the flying cats or the stream of water. For each take, Halsman’s assistants—including his wife, Yvonne, and one of his daughters, Irene—tossed the cats and the contents of a full bucket across the frame. After each attempt, Halsman developed and printed the film while Irene herded and dried off the cats. The rejected photographs had notes such as “Water splashes Dalí instead of cat” and “Secretary gets into picture.”

When Halsman was finally satisfied with the composition, Dalí added a finishing touch to the printed photograph: the swirls of paint that appear on the easel. The final image was published in Life magazine. (Halsman, incidentally, holds the record for the most Life covers ever shot—101 in total.)

Though they were two creative minds at the height of their careers, the relationship between Dalí and Halsman was never competitive, as Irene Halsman explained in a 2016 video about the photograph for Time. “Dalí never really wanted to photograph; Philippe never really wanted to pick up a paintbrush,” she said. “But together, they collaborated and made the most outrageous pictures.”

from Artsy News

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Never-Before-Seen Photos of Dalí Prove His Wife Was Way More Than a Muse

Earlier this year an exhibition opened at the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí's Púbol Castle revealing a version of the iconic surrealist as seen through the eyes of female photographers. The photos in the show, titled Women Photograph Dalí, are fascinating. Curators Bea Crespo and Rosa M. Maurell selected shots of the artist in private photos never meant for the public. Surrealist Denise Bellon and Vogue regular Karen Radkai's iconic magazine prints hang alongside behind-the-scenes portraits of Dalí directing In Voluptate Mors, shot by collaborator Philippe Halsman's wife, Yvonne. The jewels of the collection, though, are rarely-seen photos by Gala Dalí, Dalí’s wife and muse, taken at the dawn of their 53-year relationship.

Gala Dalí, Image Rights of Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2018

Gala was born Elena Ivanovna Diakonova in Russia in 1894. She met Dalí in 1929 while married to the French poet Paul Éluard and sleeping with the German Dadaist painter Max Ernst. By the end of the year, she and Dalí were living together, and entered an open marriage in 1934. Her photos in the exhibition were captured during their early years together in Púbol, where Dalí would later buy her the castle in which the photos are displayed today.

Taken between 1930 and 1932, Gala's photos of her frenetic early relationship with Dalí have never been displayed before publicly. They add a counter-visual to one of the most mysterious artist-muse relationships in recent history. They cement Gala's place as more than a famous object of the artist's attention, immortalized in paintings like The Madonna of Port Lligat and Portrait of Galarina. Dalí biographer Ian Gibson tells VICE Gala never spoke to the press about their relationship, so her impact on Dalí’s art must be decoded through his incredibly performative memoir, public appearances, and gossip from those who passed through their famous parties and orgies. But in Women Photograph Dalí, her gaze directed back at him is on display.

Gala Dalí, Image Rights of Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2018

“Although Dalí and Gala had a strong emotional bond, it was not a mature relationship," Dr. Zoltan Kovary wrote of the couple in an email to VICE. A clinical psychologist, creativity researcher, and associate professor at Budapest’s Eötvös Loránd University, Kovary took a close look at the couple when he began writing a psychological analysis of Dalí’s artwork called The Enigma of Desire: Salvador Dalí and the conquest of the irrational.

There’s plenty of eros in Gala’s photos of young Dalí, especially the ones of him sunning himself at their home in the Spanish beach town. But Kovary said their love, “Was more like a mother-infant affair; Gala sometimes called Dalí, ‘My little son.’ They never had a ‘real’ sexual relationship. Dalí, although Gala raised deep desires in him, had fear of physical contact.”

Gala Dalí, Image Rights of Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2018

Nevertheless, these photos are full of the excitement of early romance. Dalí stands in front of a weird shop they found, or lies down, barely looking at the camera. His poses look casual and unassuming. We see Dalí as he wanted Gala to see him, years before he became famous for attention-grabbing stunts like walking his pet anteater in public and making cryptic statements on game shows.

No one understands how hard it can be to sort fact from fiction and exaggeration in Dalí’s life better than Gibson. The biographer behind The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí said in an email, “He’s a biographer’s nightmare. What can you do with an individual who is always acting, always playing a part?” Gala's photos create empathy for the woman married to such a confounding man.

Anna Laetitia Pecci-Blunt, Image Rights of Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2018

Denise Bellon, Image Rights of Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2018

Gibson’s advice to those still fascinated by the man who painted the fantastical vision of The Elephants and the transcendentally anxious Persistence of Memory is straightforward. “The main clue to Dalí, I think, is that he was pathologically timid deep down and constructed his exhibitionistic persona as a protective device,” he said. “The tragedy is that we don’t have Gala’s side of the story.”

Women of Dali gets us closer than we’ve ever been before.

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Follow Beckett Mufson on Twitter and Instagram.

This article originally appeared on VICE US.

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[sm0ke-screen]

Salvador Dali with models for "In Voluptate Mors" by Philippe Halsman

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Philippe Halsman, Salvador Dali - In Voluptate Mors

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Band: Hiroshima Will Burn Genre: Deathcore Album: To The Weight of All Things Song: In Voluptate Mors

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IN VOLUPTATE MORS

FR: Vous avez sans doutes déjà vu cette célèbre photographie de Salvador Dali avec ces 7 corps nu représentant un crâne. Récemment, Rick Genest (plus connu sous le nom de Zombie Boy) et 6 femmes ont refait cette photographie pour le magazine Rebel Ink. EN: You have probably seen this famous picture of Salvador Dali with these 7 nude bodies who depicts a skull. Recently, Rick Genest (mostly known as Zombie Boy) and 6 women did a remake of this picture for the Rebel Ink magazine.

[unnamedmessofamofo]

can't stop watching salvador dali in voluptate mors

[nickydigital]

Zombie Boy tribute to Salvador Dali and Philippe Halsman's In Voluptate Mors by Joey L. 

[desolateputoface]

Dali///Halsman/// +:)

@deladeso