In 2019, I casually reached behind me to grab any book of the shelf. I pulled out a Salvador Dalí art book I’d thrifted for $2.99 and as I flipped through it, I discovered a stapled collection of pages from an old Reader’s Digest that featured Dalí. Seeing a small version and a large version of the same image was the impetus of something in my brain creatively and within minutes the first in the MF DALÍ collection was born. I decided that my MF DOOM loving fictional character, TheRingOfDOOM, would dream in Dalí and I got very excited for what I could do with such a weird starting point.
After making around twenty MF DALÍ analog collages, I was so deeply inspired by this endeavor that I quit my job and flew to Spain to photograph the smaller collages on Dalí’s grave in his museum in Figueres. My plan was to explore Museu Dalí and get a bunch of footage and photos of TheRingOfDOOM with Dalí art then head to Port Lligat/Cadaqués to visit Dalí’s house and see his studio. They let me into Museu Dalí with my tote bag of MF DALÍ collages and I did my rounds of the museum expanding my camera roll as an investment into both the project and my own happiness. When visiting Dalí’s house a few days later, I instead just brought my TheRingOfDOOM sized handmade lips couch for the photo opportunities. I would later be able to piece together both a video about the trip as a whole but also a video for TheRingOfDOOM’s series about a portal from Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain” in Tate Modern to the poolside phone booth at Dalí’s house. Here’s hoping I’ll get to see the footage from the museum and Dalí’s house someday to see how much fun I was having.
At some point I realized that each MF DALÍ collage was a story prompt and I began writing a short story or chapter for each image. By the time I finished writing the book’s first draft, I had created 158 MF DALÍ analog collages and 158 chapters of the story. Most are on paper but about a dozen are glued onto frames of varying sizes. I’ve now edited the book four times and I think it might be ready for someone else read it to see if it makes any sense to others; an intimidating phase. I can visualize a fun trajectory for this book and the project as a whole in many mediums and have been working on a new branch of MF DALÍ in the last few months. As I write this, I’ve created 207 MF DALÍ artist trading cards (or ACEOs) which are sports/Pokemon sized cards made with my collection of Dalí art books. It has been fun to look at the tiniest elements of the paintings to combine things I hadn’t seen during my first round cutting up Dalí art books.
My Plan A for getting my book published kicks off with the creation of an MF DALÍ zine that includes the backstory to the project, images from the analog collage collection, plans on how to expand the project further, and describes how the zine is a tribute to the Surrealist magazine, Minotaure. I’ve realized that this project could take days, weeks, months, or years to complete. The length of time depends solely on me and I’ve never given myself a real deadline. As of now I’m doing what I call “sweetening the pot” which is expanding the MF DALÍ universe before I reach out to share it with the people I think would appreciate the project the most with the zine. Right now this looks like growing the MF DALÍ ACEO/Artist Trading Card collection which will be included in an Appendix of the MF DALÍ book. The one thing that I know for sure is that after seven years of effort, I owe it to myself to see this project through at least until I can hold the finished book in my hand. That pivotal step will be a whole new beginning for the MF DALÍ project and I’m looking forward to seeing how far I choose to run with it. Check out the hashtag #mfdalí to see where the project has led me so far.
