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In parading aspects of desire normally considered taboo,
Salvador Dalí pushed the boundaries further than any
other. His paintings express genuine obsessions and fears,
and demonstrate his textbook knowledge of Freudian theories
about the sources of such psychological problems. Masturbation,
incest and fetishism were among the areas he explored. Working
with director Luis Buñuel, Dalí transferred
his explicit subject matter to the realm of film. In the most
famous sequence of Un Chien Andalou (1928), a woman's
eye appears to be sliced open with a razor. Riots greeted
the opening of L'Age D'Or (1930), an outrageously blasphemous
film which was subsequently banned.
Artists also explored perversion through the medium of the
surrealist object - a sculpture made from unlikely, found
materials. Dalí's Lobster Telephone (1936) is
a classic example. Another is Meret Oppenheim's Object
(1936). In covering a cup, saucer and spoon with gazelle
fur, she turns an everyday piece of crockery into something
totally unexpected, playful and potentially perverse.
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Salvador Dali, Lobster Telephone, 1936, Tate
© Salvador Dali, Gala-Salvador Dali Foundation/
DACS 2001
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