SURREALISM
SURREALISM
[2021]
black and white digital photographs
a paraphrase to Dalí Atomicus by Philippe Halsman
This series presents black and white digital photographs inspired by the photograph titled Dalí Atomicus (1948) by photographer Philippe Halsman. The images reference suspended motion, flying objects, and the presence of water as a rupture of reality. Like Halsman’s iconic photograph, each image captures a moment frozen in mid chaos. A chair flies through the air. A cat jumps. Water hangs suspended in space. However, instead of a surrealist studio, the scenes unfold in ordinary Hungarian domestic spaces. These include some rural gardens, courtyards, and backyards.
By placing some surreal or theatrical gestures into these everyday Hungarian environments, the work creates a collision between spectacle and reality. The absurd and grotesque elements are not escapes from the reality, but they intensify it. The spaces themselves – marked by poverty, decay, and sometimes quiet endurance – become active elements of the composition. What appears surreal is in fact inseparable from the lived experience.
The images operate in a constant tension between homage and displacement. On the one hand, they echo the visual language of Philippe Halsman’s surrealism. On the other hand, they shift the original image’s meaning. The project moves away from the playful experimentation toward a darker social landscape. In this way, the suspended moments suggest instability and precarity. They also evoke a sense of being caught between the past and the present. This condition reflects contemporary rural Hungary.
The photographs exist somewhere between documentation and performance. They stage the absurdity that can be present inside the ordinary, exposing how the grotesque is already embedded in reality.
The original image made in 1948 by Philippe HALSMAN of his friend Salvador Dalí, titled DALÍ ATOMICUS, published in LIFE magazine, inspired by Dalí’s painting titled LEDA ATOMICA (1949).