'Un Chien Andalou' may just be 17 minutes long, but it is easily one of the most influential films ever made. Premiered in 1929, the director Luis Buñuel (as Louis Bunuel) and co-writer Salvador Dali, sought to subvert convention and attack the status quo with a film completely lacking in plot and chronological coherence, using instead 'dream logic' in an artistic examination of the human psyche. It is said that Luis Buñuel was left beffudled at the positive reception the film received, expecting full-on violence from the attendees at the film's opening night, but instead the short became so popular that despite only intending to show it that one time it ran for 8 months straight.
'Un Chien Andalou' has influenced film makers and artists ever since and is said to be the genesis of the filmmaking style present in the modern music video. Fittingly in 1976 thousands of music fans around the world were exposed to this slice of visual madness as they were treated to the film in its entirety during David Bowie's Isolar Tour. The film was shown before each show in lieu of an opening musical act. Talk about class.
A film of this importance needed some thoughtful handling and we enlisted the German illustrator Max Löffler to create these new posters for it. We'd been wanting to with Max for ages and this just seemed like a natural choice.
In his own words:
"To call creating a poster for a piece of art by two of mankind's greatest artistic visionaries an intimidating task is quite an understatement. That's why I decided the only way to go was to stick to what felt natural to me: picking different objects from the movie and assembling them in a novel way. However, this turned out to be a delicate balancing act between realizing even more how much I owe to Dalí regarding my own visual language and not having the arrogance to even attempt to emulate the great master. I just hope I kept the balance right."
Well we think you nailed it Max.
'Un Chien Andalou' comes in two colourways. The regular version from an edition of 100 copies, and a red variant from an edition of 50. We also printed 5 copies of the red variant on a luscious gold paper that will be inserted at random in orders containing both the regular and variant editions.
The prints are 18" x 36", have been expertly printed by White Duck Editions, and will go on sale tomorrow Friday 10 May at 5pm UK time exclusively from our shop. We will send out a reminder one hour before the sale to newsletter subscribers.
'Un Chien Andalou' by Max Löffler
18" x 36" screenprint
270gsm Colorplan China White archival paper
Hand numbered. Gallery stamp on the reverse
Printed by White Duck Editions
Limited Edition of 100
£40
'Un Chien Andalou' (red variant) by Max Löffler
18" x 36" screenprint
240gsm Flora Camoscio archival paper
Hand numbered. Gallery stamp on the reverse
Printed by White Duck Editions
Limited Edition of 50
£65
'Un Chien Andalou' (gold variant) by Max Löffler
18" x 36" screenprint
250gsm Peregrina Majestic Real Gold archival paper
Hand numbered. Gallery stamp on the reverse
Printed by White Duck Editions
Limited Edition of 5
Randomly inserted in 5 orders containing both regular and variant versions of the poster