Lobster Telephone

Lobster Telephone

Lobster Telephone (also known as Aphrodisiac Telephone) is a surrealist object, created by Salvador Dalí in 1936 with surrealist artist and patron Edward James. Dalí wrote of lobsters and telephones in his book The Secret Life, demanding to know why, when he asked for a grilled lobster in a restaurant, he was never presented with a boiled telephone.

Description

The piece is a composite of an ordinary working telephone and a lobster made of plaster. It is approximately 15 × 30 × 17 cm (6 × 12 × 6.6 inches) in size.

Possible interpretations

Dalí created this object with the specific intention of aligning the lobster's genitalia with the end of the phone into which one would speak, thus aligning the speaker's mouth with the lobster's genitalia. These were an example of sexual references through art, but represented through food items.

Sculpture exhibition

Five copies of the full colour object were made. One now appears at the Dalí Universe in London; the second can be found at the Museum of Telecommunication in Frankfurt; the third belongs to the Edward James Foundation; and the fourth is at the National Gallery of Australia. The sculpture was displayed at the National Gallery of Victoria during the Salvador Dalí Liquid Desire exhibition. A fifth version is held by Tate Liverpool.

There were also six all-white versions which were produced, one of which is on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and one at the Salvador Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. Another is held at Centro Cultural de Belém, in Portugal, and is owned by the art collector Joe Berardo. Yet another can be viewed at the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) in Johannesburg, South Africa.