Patrice Habans / Paris Match / Getty Images
Close up surrealism: Dalí and anteater 1969 in Paris
How to stage an anteater? The best way is to set the scene as normal as possible, and then contrast the most with the exotic animal.
Patrice Habans was a photographer at the French magazine "Paris Match". In 1968, he had shot the two black US athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the Olympics when they received their medals with the Black Power salute. For his new motive, he did not have to travel halfway around the globe. Habans positioned itself at the local metro station Bastille.
It was holiday time, most Parisians were on vacation or preparing for it. Habans needed exactly so many passers-by that a small casserole came about; On the other hand, his object was not allowed to sink in the crowd. Of course, Habans had denied the action before, if only with the actor - the audience knew nothing.
Astonished, the Parisians rubbed their eyes on the morning of July 26, 1969, when a hairy creature on four feet met them on the top steps. A Wuschelhund? No, it was the snout with which it sniffed his way, far too long. A puddle stopped for a moment. Two cunning eyes blinked into the clouds, a huge tongue plunging into a pool of milk that a careless citizen had previously spilled. Or was it intentional?
An animal for the glamor factor
Before those around could ponder where they had seen such a creature before (at the zoo, in a wildlife broadcast on TV?), They electrified another sight. With the anteater, for that was the reason, a worthy elderly gentleman was tied by a leash and, propped up on a stick made of precious wood, walked up the steps. Above all, his upturned mustache made him easily recognizable - the companion was a famous Spanish painter.
photo gallery
17 pictures
Eccentrics and Their Pets: Treat Every PetSalvador Dalí was already 65 years old and rather retired. That did not stop him from spectacular performances. He was helped by another pet, his ocelot. The spotted animal, with Dalí at the side, gave colorful magazines additional shine. Exotic pets had also done to some artist colleagues Dalí. They did not show much imagination in the selection - big cats were most popular.
Even US silent film star Phyllis Gordon posed off the screen with a cheetah on a leash. The famous dancer Josephine Baker held a leopard, actress Tippi Hedren a lion. And Tarzandarsteller Steve Sipek imagewise a tiger. To Audrey Hepburn an aggressive animal would have hardly fit: She came to a shy deer (see photo gallery) .
Actress Debra Paget and pop star Michael Jackson shared their homes with monkeys, as did Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, whose animals lived in natural surroundings. The author and illustrator Beatrix Potter focused on down-to-earthness instead of exoticism. Her pet was a rabbit that could be leashed. Potter made Benjamin Bouncer the hero of her children's books.
On the day after Dalí's appearance on the Metro, Habans's staged snapshot was featured on the title page of the capital's gazets, with the subheading: "Salvador Dalí, ascending from the basement of the subconscious, leashed a romantic anteater, the creature that André Breton chose as an ex-libris. "
Obsessed by ants
Breton, surrealist like Dalí, used to ship his bookmarks with the addition "André le tamanoir" or "André le fourmilier"; both French expressions designate the anteater.
The "tamanoir" Dalí had missed the friend as a nickname and delivered for Breton bookmarks like the templates. The two had also argued, even in between their friendship terminated. It seemed to be late for a compensation, Breton had died three years earlier.
Even more than the dead friend Dalí was on his own image. The "basement of his subconscious" had always supplied the objects for his art. Now it was the ants that haunted his head and that he presented to his audience alienated. Andre Breton, it is said, hated the corpse-eating insects.
As a child, Dalí had once watched ants dismantle an animal carcass. Often they appear in his pictures and graphics, symbolizing death and decay. Milk, which is plastered by its greatest enemy, stands for the innocent and the uncorrupted. The white fluid also appears again and again in his works, as a lake, as a fountain or even in a glass into which a finger dives.
Dalí wanted to use the action to maintain his ego and promote his art, Habans make a good photo above all. Where Dalí went with the animal, how the passers-by reacted on the way through Paris - nothing is known of the further circumstances. The most important thing for both artists was probably the staging.
A year later, in the US television program "Dick Cavett Show", Dalí entered the stage again with an anteater. This time the specimen was much smaller and came from the genus of the tree-living species.
Disrespectful, Dalí threw the animal on the table first, then actress Lillian Gish in his lap. Her reaction did not seem to interest Dalí. Lillian Gish, only briefly outraged, immediately began to stroke the bear.
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