Museum Purchase Justification: The Great Masturbator by Salvador Dali
Hi, this is for paper 2, paper 1 part is for better understanding the standard : )
Paper #2
Following the instructions below, you must now purchase a different artwork by a different artist that compliments MoMA’s growing collection of Symbolist, Viennese Expressionist, Abstract, or Surrealist art. Your budget is only $50 million (sorry, the Donors gave less money this year!). As before, you cannot select an artwork from Study Guide #2, though you can use an artist from the guide. However, if you wrote about Manet (for example) in Paper #1, you cannot write about Manet in Paper #2.
Paper #1
You are the curator of modern European art at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. The Director and Trustees of the Museum have tasked you with purchasing a significant work of modern European art for the permanent collection. Your budget is $150 million, and you can purchase any artwork (e.g., print, painting, sculpture) that is either Post-Impressionist, German Expressionist (Die Brücke only), Proto-Cubist, Fauvist or Cubism, even if the work is currently in another museum or private collection.
You cannot, however, choose an image from Study Guide #1, though you can use an artist from the guide.
The work that you purchase will not only become part of MoMA’s permanent collection, but the Director will also use the work you purchase as the basis for a forthcoming exhibition on that artist (e.g., Manet), the style (e.g., Pre-Impressionism), or the actual artwork (e.g., Olympia, 1863). Please research the scholarly literature on the artwork you seek to purchase for MoMA, and then write a 4- page, double-spaced “Museum Purchase Justification Report” paper* using the following subheadings:
1. Background: Provide an image of the artwork. Then begin by writing a brief historical/biographical background on the artist & artwork, remembering to include tombstone information. Then describe the style of the art and identify similar artworks.
2. Significance: Why is this artist a significant/important European modern artist worthy of the MoMA’s permanent collection?
3. Scholarship: Discuss what leading art historians/scholars have said about this artist/artwork in the current literature.
4. Collection: What other artworks in MoMA’s collection (either by this artist, or other artists) would compliment this piece?
5. Budget: Please justify why this work will be strong enough to serve as the basis of a forthcoming exhibition, and is worth spending $150 million.**
*Using subheadings may help you better organize the different sections of your MPJR paper.
**The Director and Trustees are extremely busy and savvy business people, so all writing has to be clear, concise, accurate, and convincingly well argued.
Professor's Name
Course
Date
Museum Purchase Justification Report 2
The Great Masturbator by Salvador Dali
Background
The painting is an autobiographical artwork created by Salvador Dali in 1929 in oil on canvas medium. Salvador was a Spanish surrealist artist famous for his technical skills, craftsmanship, and unique images. He was born in Figueres, Catalonia, Spain, in 1904 and studied fine arts in Madrid. He developed an interest in Cubism and avant-garde movements influenced by Impressionism and the Renaissance masters. In the 1920s, he moved closer to Surrealism and eventually joined the Surrealist team in 1929 through this painting and became one of the leading artists of the technique. His artistic works included paintings, graphic arts, sculpture, film, and photography. While he worked alone, at other times, he worked with other artists.
The Great Masturbator covers the artist's anxieties, fears, and sexual obsessions. The painting features a large amorphous form that represents a distorted self-portrait of the artist. He paints himself with his eyes closed and a larger grasshopper placed on his mouth. Dali utilizes the same approach in his other versions of his self-portrait, including The Persistence of Memory (1931). Dali notes that he created the self-portrait based on a rock formation, Cap de Creus, which can be found in Catalonia along with the shoes of his area of birth. The author's choice of the name emanates from his perception of sexualizing, and his desire manifests itself through a female figure, which is only visible to her shoulders, appearing to protrude from the rock. The lady is identified as Gala Eluard, who later becomes Dali's wife. As evident in the painting, her head and mouth appear next to the crotch of a standing man, whose upper part has been cut off. Dali painted this image when he had started dating Gala, who was still merited to another Surrealist artist, Paul Eluard, who mainly dealt with poems.
Significance
Dali is important to the period of Surrealism because of his immense contributions to the field. Even as an art student, he showed unusual technical ability as a painter, and as time progressed, his creativity only became better. Dali also explores what is important in human psychology, which is subconscious imagery, where he tries to explain the reality of the human subconscious over reason. In many of these paintings, he attempts to actualize the events that operate in people's subconscious minds. He exposes the fact that there are often many events that run through people's subconscious minds and, by presenting them, challenges others also to assess their thoughts. He appears to challenge people to retrospect themselves and state whether they would be comfortable if their subconscious thoughts were exposed to the public. Therefore, adopting his works for display encourages people to constantly activate their unconscious mind through imagery (Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia). The subconscious mind is the most powerful source of the body that helps people do most things better than how the body functions. It plays an essential role in shaping normal exercises, such as eating, breathing, digestion, and making memories.
Scholarship
While Dali greatly contributed to Surrealism and art in general, his works elicited mixed reactions from many other schol...