Salvador Dalí's Dream of Venus at the 1939 New York world's fair: capitalist funhouse or surrealist landmark?
- Author
- Christel Stalpaert (UGent)
- Organization
- Abstract
- For the 1939 World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, New York, Salvador Dalí created a surrealist funhouse called Dream of Venus. This installation, which included sound and performance, aimed at a controversial sensation, a truly surreal experience for its visitors. Labelled as “tacky, Oceanside amusement park attraction” and wrapped up by consumer commodity, however, Dalí’s surrealist funhouse is been said to have lost much of its provocative power. This contribution investigates to what extent the avant-garde aesthetics and politics became part and parcel of American consumer culture, commodity culture and capitalism. Gilles Deleuze’s and Félix Guattari’s poststructuralist analysis of the axiomatic regime of capitalism and their view on madness provides a toolbox for taking a closer look at surrealist (vain?) efforts to combat capitalist dominion.
- Keywords
- visual arts, surrealism, performance studies, Salvador Dali, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, capitalism
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Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-1980224
- Chicago
- Stalpaert, Christel. 2012. “Salvador Dalí’s Dream of Venus at the 1939 New York World's Fair: Capitalist Funhouse or Surrealist Landmark?” In Drunk on Capitalism : an Interdisciplinary Reflection on Market Economy, Art and Science, ed. Robrecht Vanderbeeken, Frederik Le Roy, Christel Stalpaert, and Diederik Aerts, 11 (2):101–115. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
- APA
- Stalpaert, C. (2012). Salvador Dalí’s Dream of Venus at the 1939 New York world's fair: capitalist funhouse or surrealist landmark? In Robrecht Vanderbeeken, F. Le Roy, C. Stalpaert, & D. Aerts (Eds.), Drunk on capitalism : an interdisciplinary reflection on market economy, art and science (Vol. 11 (2), pp. 101–115). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.
- Vancouver
- 1.Stalpaert C. Salvador Dalí’s Dream of Venus at the 1939 New York world's fair: capitalist funhouse or surrealist landmark? In: Vanderbeeken R, Le Roy F, Stalpaert C, Aerts D, editors. Drunk on capitalism : an interdisciplinary reflection on market economy, art and science. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer; 2012. p. 101–15.
- MLA
- Stalpaert, Christel. “Salvador Dalí’s Dream of Venus at the 1939 New York World's Fair: Capitalist Funhouse or Surrealist Landmark?” Drunk on Capitalism : an Interdisciplinary Reflection on Market Economy, Art and Science. Ed. Robrecht Vanderbeeken et al. Vol. 11 (2). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2012. 101–115. Print.
@incollection{1980224,
abstract = {For the 1939 World{\textquoteright}s Fair in Flushing Meadows Corona Park, New York, Salvador Dal{\'i} created a surrealist funhouse called Dream of Venus. This installation, which included sound and performance, aimed at a controversial sensation, a truly surreal experience for its visitors. Labelled as {\textquotedblleft}tacky, Oceanside amusement park attraction{\textquotedblright} and wrapped up by consumer commodity, however, Dal{\'i}{\textquoteright}s surrealist funhouse is been said to have lost much of its provocative power. This contribution investigates to what extent the avant-garde aesthetics and politics became part and parcel of American consumer culture, commodity culture and capitalism. Gilles Deleuze{\textquoteright}s and F{\'e}lix Guattari{\textquoteright}s poststructuralist analysis of the axiomatic regime of capitalism and their view on madness provides a toolbox for taking a closer look at surrealist (vain?) efforts to combat capitalist dominion.},
author = {Stalpaert, Christel},
booktitle = {Drunk on capitalism : an interdisciplinary reflection on market economy, art and science},
editor = {Vanderbeeken, Robrecht and Le Roy, Frederik and Stalpaert, Christel and Aerts, Diederik},
isbn = {9789400720817},
language = {eng},
pages = {101--115},
publisher = {Springer},
series = {Einstein Meets Magritte},
title = {Salvador Dal{\'i}'s Dream of Venus at the 1939 New York world's fair: capitalist funhouse or surrealist landmark?},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2082-4\_9},
volume = {11 (2)},
year = {2012},
}
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