NFT projects
META-MEMENTO MORI
An Ai reimagination of Halsman and Dali's "In Voluptate Mors"
Philippe Halsman and Salvador Dali collaborated together for over 37 years, transforming ideas into iconic photographic art. Halsman was best known by the public for his celebrity portraits and 101 LIFE covers, but his Jump series, darkroom experiments, and his time with Dali were opportunities to play and inject some irrationality into the Mid-century’s collective consciousness.
Fast forward 80 years to 2023 and we are at a cusp of creative renaissance, and an opportunity to bring the legacy of the past onto the chain of the future. This series is about a new opportunity to extend the collaborative nature of Halsman and Dali, where Halsman’s grandson, artist Oliver Halsman Rosenberg, has used Ai prompts to inject a layer of irrationality into an iconic and controversial photo from the past.
“In Voluptate Mors” (Voluptuous Death) is a photo inspired by Saint Anthony’s hallucinations in the desert. In 1951 A European publisher wanted to make a book of Halsman’s photos of Dali. Dali and Halsman met to discuss the project, and decided there should be a photograph of a nude in the book. Halsman wanted to overwhelm the public with the sheer number of nudes and suggested the theme of the temptation of St Anthony, which Dali initially dismissed because it had been done before. One of Saint Anthony’s final temptations was to overcome the desire for flesh. Dali called Halsman the next morning and said the suggestion had inspired him to draw a skull composed of seven nudes later that night. “In voluptuousness there is always the idea of death” -Dali. Halsman, who had an engineering background, designed the armature for the models to stand on, and did two weeks of casting to find models whose proportions would fit the architecture. Eventually they hired nine models, and proceeded to recreate Dali’s drawing irl. Halsman’s wife Yvonne documented the behind the scenes of the set up and shoot. “Although all objectionable parts of the models were covered, no magazine dared publish the unusual photograph.” Eventually The US Camera Photo Annual had the courage to print it, and its fee covered 5% of the model expenses. 15 years later however Art in America reprinted the photo” -Halsman. While the photo was eventually included in Museum exhibitions and private collections, it also became an underground iconic symbol, appearing on bootleg T-shirts, movie posters, and tattooed on flesh around the world.
A Memento Mori is an art historical trope. For 1000s of years people have kept images of skulls around to remind themselves of the fleeting nature of life, so that they can stay present and in gratitude. At this moment in time Ai is upending tradition, and like most major art movements: starting out with controversy. Similar to how the invention of the camera transformed the nature of painting, Ai also marks the death and rebirth of everything we have thought about art up until now, as a tool that allows us to weave the past with the future. Halsman and Dali’s living skull seems like an apt symbol for this moment of transformation. Halsman’s grandson Oliver used the “In Voluptate Mors” photo to reimagine art history and the collapses of empires, by imagining new antiquities that would remain once a culture has disappeared. The new Ai skulls are like precious objects for metaverse curiosity cabinets. Halsman himself was a collector of antiquities from ancient civilizations, and these masks and carvings from around the World surrounded Oliver as he generated the Ai images. Old art movements/civilizations die, and new ones are born. These new skulls are all 1 of 1 NFTs generated in the spirit of Halsman and Dali’s collaborations, with a sense of play and an intention to inject irrationality into the collective.
550 1 of 1 pieces dropping on Foundation Feb 23rd at NFT Paris, and exhibited at NFT Factory Paris
Find the collection here:
ERC 1155 for bidders and winners of drops 1-10 from SuperRare
2:51 minute audio of Halsman speaking about his rules for stimulating creativity, set to Ai animation using a Halsman self portrait as the init image. View Video
"Thank god I don't know the rules of photography. For if I did, I wouldn't be creative. There are far too many rules! The photographer should be free to do it the way he wants to."
-Philippe Halsman
My Grandfather was an artist and technologist. He invented his own camera in 1936 at the age of 30, and taught himself by trial and error how to create stunning technical photos. But he wasn't just limited by what he saw, he also wanted to create images from his mind. This impulse led him to inventing new techniques in and out of the darkroom, many of which inspired Photoshop, and digital art in general as we know it today. From projection mapping, to collage, to blending images in post, he did it all in analog.
Perhaps he is best known for his 101 LIFE covers, iconic portraits of celebrities, his series of people jumping, or his 37 year collaborative run with Dali, all of which resulted in images that have been ingrained into the collective conscious. He was an immigrant to America, and built his career from sweat, luck, and ingenuity. When I visited his photo studio as a child, when no one was looking I would open a random file cabinet drawer, pull a file at random, and explore its contents. They contained a magical world of prints, contact sheets, negatives, magazine clippings, and notes, which told the whole story behind the iconic shoot.
For this NFT collection I wanted to share my unique BTS experience of care taking analogue photography. I think a lot about the Blockchain, the immutable ledger that NFTs are traded on, and how it is the latest iteration in the history of humans keeping track of information all the way back to Sumerian cuneiform tablets. This collection is not just about the visual/photographic record of humanity that Halsman captured in the 1940-70s, but also the metadata found on the analogue ledger -specifically in this case, my family's writing on the envelopes. The 11x14 manila envelope was the ledger, and information and details (like prints being sent out and returned over the decades) were logged by hand. My grandparents are both gone now, but these envelopes, with my grandfather's photos inside and my grandmother's writing outside are a yin and yang story, an irl manifestation of creativity and the continuous effort that is needed to keep it alive in the world.
I am an artist/photographer myself, but also the archivist of the collection, and for this collection I chose some of my favorite subjects who are either are still culturally relevant, or just visually magical. The collection contains famous Artists, Photographers, Hollywood Stars, Musicians, Directors, Presidents, Icons, and a few surprises. The filing cabinets are like time machines, allowing us to travel into the vitality of a time gone by. The files are aging and crumbling, the envelopes warp with time and space, curling and cracking as we all do. But there is still magic within, and the patina of time gives it a tactile quality usually never seen by the public. This quality is what I wanted to bring to the Blockchain for the genesis Halsman drop. The Oroborus spins and bites its own tail, like a record on a turntable, the cycle of information, a continuous outflowing of expression and what makes us human. Halsman believed in the power of the human mind, but he was ultimately interested in capturing on film the depth of the soul of his subjects. I'm sure he would be bullish on NFTs and exploring all the possibilities that this technology now allows, and giving his work a new life. This collection is dedicated to all the creators out there who will make the iconographic images of the future, and to the blockchains on which they will reside.
-Oliver Halsman Rosenberg (@ohr_nft)
Magnum 75 collection
https://foundation.app/@magnumphotos/mpa75/49
follow us on twitter for updates @halsman_nft
Magnum 75 #49 by Philippe Halsman. USA. 1968
Magnum 75 #49 by Philippe Halsman. USA. 1968
The American painter and filmmaker Andy Warhol.
The Magnum 75 collection is the inaugural NFT collection by Magnum Photos. Created in 2022, the collection brings together works by 76 photographers taken across seven decades.
Each drop will be curated in dialogue with three leading picture editors from across the globe and selected to embody the agency’s past, present, and future. This collection release coincides with the agency’s 75th celebrations and its Annual General Meeting in New York.
The first collection has been curated by Alejandro Cartagena, co-founder of Obscura.
Edition: 1 of 1
© Phillipe Halsman/Magnum Photos 2022 All Rights Reserved
www.magnumphotos.com/terms-conditions/