Dali & I: The Surreal Story

I like the author's conversational style. Too bad for him that he hadn't found his calling earlier. One thing the book is, is fun and light. Perfect for the plane, the beach or a rainy day. Is it true? Hard to believe that a butcher has so much money in a vase, but maybe butchering is more lucrative in Europe. Hard to believe that people would buy a museum piece -- sort of like buying the Brooklyn Bridge. It makes you wonder how these folks acquired their wealth. How does a pardon from the King just magically appear? If true, the scale of the fraud is staggering. Dali was never an artist that I followed. He always seemed to me more of "brand" than an artist. Dali's showmanship feeds into the author's premise which is that Dali, himself, is a fraud. This, of course, makes Lauryssens less culpable. Towards the end the reminiscences of 2nd tier hasbeens (names probably unknown to most under 30) are sad. It seems like they're trying to top each other at Dali and Gala's expense. The author could be right and perhaps this book will open a can of worms. If not, it does serve to disclose how many ways those who collect art can be defrauded.

I have been a fan of Salvador Dali's work since I first saw the iconic soft watches lying on a surreal landscape many, many years ago. It was always apparent to me that Dali was a lunatic, and that was part of the appeal. He was a mad genius who crafted some of the greatest and most inventive art the world had ever seen. It surprised me, then, that I so much appreciated a work like this, which paints a very different portrait of Dali. We see him as a pervert, a madman without reason, a man obsessed with nothing more than money, and (above all else) a complete fraud. Are the claims Lauryssens puts forth any more genuine than those Dali put forth about himself? Did he invite celebrities and dignitaries to wild sex parties for his masturbatory pleasure? Was he the engineer of fraud on such a grand scale? Nobody can say for sure. The truth is probably somewhere between Dali's claims and those of Stan Lauryssens. Whether it's true or not is really not material to the quality of this work. Stan Lauryssens is an engaging writer purging his conscience and his memory for the pleasure of those readers who desire a more intimate portrait of arguably the most famous surrealist to ever walk the face of the earth.

Dali & I, a memoir of the wild ride Stan Lauryssens experienced as a high-flying dealer of Salvador Dali's artwork, sketches Dali as a grotesque human incarnation of the twisted surrealism that inspired his art. By placing his own name alongside Dali's in the title and acknowledging his own moral shortcomings as a trafficker in fraudulent Dali art, Lauryssens seeks to redeem himself (or at least rationalize his misdeeds) as the inevitable byproduct of the aging Dali's lack of artistic integrity and the greedy consumerism of wealthy art investors. The beginning of the book is a major hoot, recounting with how Lauryssens rose from a menial job punching holes in Emmentaler cheese, to a stint as a writer for a bogus Hollywood magazine, to a millionaire reseller of Dali art. His conversational writing style, peppered with anecdotes from close associates of Dali, makes for an easy, engaging read. And the descriptions of Spain's Catalonia region, along with its impact on Dali's art, have a poetic quality about them. Some of his swindling war stories carry a strong whiff of exaggeration, yet I have little doubt that greed and gullibility generated many easy marks for his fraudulent transactions. The author's often second- or third-hand accounts of Dali's wild orgies and penchant for signing his name to voluminous amounts of art he did not produce are still harder to accept at face value. Though Lauryssens undoubtedly traveled in Dali's circles, writes with convincing detail, and is not the first to question the authenticity of some of Dali's later works, he would have us believe that the majority of Dali's body of art is inauthentic, including many famous paintings on display in museums around the world. A tad too convenient of a theory, perhaps, serving the twin purposes of minimizing the import of the author's own fraudulent acts (how guilty can he have been if the entire post-1930s Dali collection is suspect) and generating controversy and buzz for his book. And with a major movie starring Al Pacino as Dali in the works for release in 2009, I can't help but wonder if Dali & I represents yet another sleight of hand from this master of the trade. My advice: read the book (it's a lot of fun, after all) and judge its veracity for yourself!

This book is very interesting. It gave me the new insight in Dali's life and paintings. I hope to see the film soon.

I read this book in one day. fascinating. shocking. but what is real? what is fake? what is imagined? so it seems that a film will be made from this book with Al Pacino playing the role of Salvador Dali. I can't wait to see it.