Culture
Rick James Burned a Salvador Dalí Original While Freebasing in a Hotel Room
By BSN Staff, . BSN Network. Satire.
A drawing produced by Salvador Dalí, widely considered one of the most technically gifted and irreplaceable visual artists of the twentieth century, was destroyed sometime in the early 1980s in circumstances that sources describe as entirely preventable.
The drawing, which no longer exists in any form, had reportedly been given to Rick James as a gift during a period when the funk musician was moving in circles that occasionally included European collectors, gallery owners, and people who should have known better than to give Rick James something irreplaceable.
James, who was at the time processing the commercial underperformance of his fourth studio album, has described his mental state during this period as one of profound reflection. People who were around him at the time describe it differently.
"He was not in a reflective place," said one former associate, who asked not to be named. "Reflective is not the word I would use. There are other words."
The drawing, according to accounts James himself gave in later years, was present in the room. Then something happened. Then it was not present in the room in the same way that it had been before.
James reportedly felt bad about it.
"Had my arrogance finally caught up with me?" he is said to have asked himself, which is a fascinating question to arrive at via a destroyed Dalí and not, for instance, earlier.
What makes the incident particularly notable to art historians is not the destruction itself, which in the broad sweep of history is not even close to the most chaotic thing that has happened to a work of art. It is the specific chain of custody that brought a museum-quality surrealist drawing into contact with a man who was, at that moment, one of the least equipped people on earth to be in proximity to irreplaceable objects.
A spokesperson for the estate of Salvador Dalí declined to comment on the record but confirmed, through a representative, that the organization was "aware of the general contours of the situation" and had chosen to focus its energies on "the preservation and celebration of works that continue to exist."
That is a sentence that took a lawyer to write.
The album at the center of James's anxiety, Garden of Love, had gone gold, which in any reasonable framework would be considered a success. James did not consider it a success. This distinction between going gold and going platinum was, in the emotional economy of Rick James in 1982, apparently vast enough to destabilize a man's relationship with other people's property.
Art conservators who specialize in works on paper note that Dalí's drawings were produced on materials that are, by their nature, not resilient to heat, moisture, casual neglect, or the specific atmospheric conditions of a hotel room occupied by Rick James.
"Paper is fragile," said one conservator, who had not been told the specifics of the case before offering this observation. "You'd be surprised how many people don't think about that until it's too late."
No insurance claim was ever filed. No police report exists. The drawing is simply gone, the way things go when nobody involved has any incentive to create a paper trail.
James went on to release Street Songs the following year, which sold six million copies and produced "Super Freak." He did not acquire any more Dalís.
The drawing has been gone for over forty years now. Dalí, for his part, made a lot of drawings.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.vice.com/en/article/how-rick-james-accidentally-destroyed-a-one-of-a-kind-salvador-dali-drawing/