Jean Clemmer
The space age erotic photographer Jean Clemmer had a vast archive which the curatorial examined advising on images that would be notable for exhibition. Many of the selected images in the Clemmer archive became the substance of the Clemmer/ Rabanne/Dalí show in Los Angeles for Photography Week at the Berman Gallery in Santa Monica. The curatorial identified film stills at the Paris Estate of Jean Clemmer belonging to an unknown film of Salvador Dalí which was destroyed in a fire. The photos were taken using film maker Chris Marker's 24mm Pentax camera which he notably used to capture the image stills for his film La Jetée. The photos of Dalí's lost film were later published for the first time through the efforts of the curatorial in Carine Roitfeld's CR Magazine Issue 2, February 28. 2013 accompanied by an article by Laura Whitcomb.. Their discovery formed the basis of an exhibition at Galleria Carla Sozzani in Milan in 2018 where Whitcomb lectured on Dalí's work in fashion.
Le Divin Dalí
Le Divin Dalí was produced by Claude Joudioux. Joudioux and A.P.E.C Studios Paris produced Chris Marker’s La Jetée and Roman Polanski’s Le Gros et Le Maigre. Through the introduction of photographer Jean Clemmer, Joudioux commissioned Dalí to direct his first solo film directing project in 1964. Dalí created a scene of tiers of glass with nude models appearing to be in states of levitation. Dalí proclaimed to the cinema magazines at the time the film would symbolize “canibalism and angelicism.” The most striking image is a woman with the head of a minotaure, the hallmark symbol of the Surrealists.
These Jean Clemmer photographs portray the only visual reminiscence of the film as Le Divin Dalí’s master copy was soon destroyed in a fire days after it was shot.