Art into consumption, or the Enterprise of Art as a profiteer and manipulator of mass culture. It explores the compromise between what many felt was the greatest pandering to commerce in art history and the aims of the artist’s attempt to reach the summit of poetic Surrealism with the widespread influence of its impact on society.


The gallery features the works of one of the first modern artists to use the tool of renown to fuel the mechanization of consumption. It is a paradox which harks to the infamous anigram 'Avida Dollars' a term which the Surrealist movement’s leader Andre Breton chastised him with in a derision which would conjoin his expulsion from the group and much of his greater legacy.

The exhibition showcases his influence with exhibits of some selected exposures he allotted to mass culture. In this massive, extrapolated from Laura Whitcomb’s book which will be released in 2011, the gallery focuses on the works of illustration, film, fashion, theatre works, writing, architecture, music product and game design. These visuals will have served to many as their first exposure of the Surrealist movement which overpowered the concept of reality by unleashing the components of the unconscious.

The highlights included in the Label Gallery show are an original copy of the Dali News, the newspaper he created as a derision of the media culture he tooled so shrewdly and the photos of his sets and costumes for the Ballet Russes de Monte Carlo as well as his sets for his pavilion at the 1939 New York’s Worlds Fair. Included are samples of his jewelry, ceramics, playing cards and even an ashtray all reflecting the commonality of objects used in his art. Also included are his original ties, textiles, graphic work and illustrative work for books, magazines, record covers from Jackie Gleeson to Scarlatti’s opera, The Opera. Through the body of this work, the show confronts the commoditization of an artist with a separate agenda, namely to unleash the intentions of a movement through the most prevailing commonality of culture which for the first time truly dispelled the fine line of high and low art.. The most compelling works are the photographs.

JG Ballard once wrote "Salvador Dali was the last of the great cultural outlaws, and probably the last genius to visit our cheap and gaudy planet. Look around you with an unbiased eye and, alas, you will see no painter of genius, and no novelist, poet, philosopher or composer who takes his or her place in that top tier without asking our permission".