Norms do… Dalí

In a strange distant land, almost like the manifestation of a dreamlike unreality, where sharp craggy cliffs are reflected into the mirrored surface of a completely still ocean, and lone eggs cast elongated shadows into the bleak night, three Norms are left flattened, distorted, and almost draped over a series of nonsensically placed objects. Like overly ripe camembert or a floppy wet sardine, the Norms have been reduced to near 2-dimensional formulations of their once rotund gelatinous anatomies, bending and flopping over the inhabitants of this mystifying land: a morphed bird-like manifestation, a bleak, apparently root-less tree, and a cubic structure set like a stage for a nonexistent theatre troop. No one is clear why they are there, or when they will go, but in this eery, intransigent episode, one thing is clear: this milieu has no timescale, no locus, sense of rationality or reason, other than to clarify one indubitable observation: the Persistence of Normativity.

The Persistence of Normativity (after Dali) (2013 © Nicholas de Lacy-Brown, pen on paper)

Confused? Who isn’t, but since the Norms have been suitably inspired by Salvidor Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory, they thought a Delphic description was suitable to narrate this inconclusively surreal scene. Replacing Dalí’s famous melting clocks, these Norms fill the scene suitably, with their lucid organic forms, yet retaining all of Dalí’s characteristic inclusions, from the eggs and the craggy landscape of his home town, Cadaqués, to his ants, his flies and his strange bird-like forms. This is pure Dalí, with a little spice of Normativity.

© Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm, 2001-2012. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of the material, whether written work, photography or artwork, included within The Daily Norm without express and written permission from The Daily Norm’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Nicholas de Lacy-Brown and The Daily Norm with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

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