Buste à tiroir 1937

Editor: So, this is Salvador Dalí's "Buste à tiroir" from 1937, made with ink on paper. I find the drawing incredibly unsettling, yet it holds a strange classical elegance, doesn't it? What strikes you about this piece? Curator: The symbolic weight of "drawers" in Dalí’s work is undeniable, echoing a Freudian fascination with the hidden and repressed. Consider the bust itself, a classical form, a symbol of authority and permanence, but here, fractured. What do those open drawers suggest to you, visually? Editor: Exposure, maybe? Or the idea that what we see on the surface is only a fraction of the whole. Curator: Precisely. The drawers invite us to peer into the unseen recesses of the psyche. Dalí masterfully uses recognizable symbols – the bust, the drawers, the hair reminiscent of ancient philosophers – to disrupt our sense of reality. The head appears almost like a planet, but the opening, where should be the eye is quite aggressive. Do you agree with that? Editor: Absolutely, the circular "eye" looks quite menacing. It feels as if we’re invited, even forced, to look within, into potentially disturbing places. What could this eye symbolise in this work? Curator: It represents surveillance and perhaps our anxieties concerning the uninhibited access to self knowledge, revealing some parts but leaving other areas unseen. It is worth asking ourselves "What we show or what we want to hide from our deepest inner places?". This work offers a glimpse into how cultural memory shapes how we feel and experience the world, layering classic forms with surrealist anxieties. Editor: I hadn't thought about the anxieties around self knowledge. The classical combined with the surreal gives it such a unique feel. Curator: Exactly, it pushes beyond just visual representation; the artwork embodies something buried but enduring. Thank you for giving me an opening to reconsider it myself!