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Wittgenstein Plays Chess with Duchamp or How Not to Do Philosophy: Wittgenstein on Mistakes of Surface and Depth

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Figure1 Ludwig Wittgenstein
(1889-1951)

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Figure. 2
Marcel Duchmap,Opposition
and Sister Squares are
Reconciled,1932

According to my Wittgenstein CD⁽¹⁾, there are 181 tokens of the word “chess” and its cognates (such as “chessboard”) in the Blackwell published works of Wittgenstein. We begin, however, with the French/American artist and chess master Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968). Duchamp, co-wrote a magisterial chess book titled: Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled.⁽²⁾ (Fig. 2)The special subject of this specialist’s book is King and Pawn endings.
One of the simpler positions Duchamp analyzes is: (Diagram 1)

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Diagram 1

Black’s temptation is to swoop in (with 1 … Ke4, as in (Diagram. 2)) and attack the White Pawn. But, as Duchamp explains:

It would be wrong to begin with 1 … Ke4, [as in (Diagram. 2)] because of 2 Kc5 (Diagram. 3) and White would win the P[awn]. This manoeuvre is known as “trébuchet”. ⁽³⁾

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Diagram 2
Diagram 3

Black’s only move now is to retreat to one of the squares marked with a “K” in (Diagram. 4), allowing White to snatch the pawn(Diagram. 5)and go on to win. Black’s first, obvious, aggressive, materialistic (but unreflective) move, going straight to the undefended pawn, turns out to be a kind of suicide. (Taking one’s time would have done the trick.)

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Diagram 4
Diagram 5

Tolstoy wrote that “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Is this the same for mistakes? Is each one a mistake in its own way? 1 … Ke4 is not, I would think, the same kind of mistake that Oedipus made when he married Jocasta (although both involve regicide). What kind of mistake is 1 … Ke4? Why would anyone make this move? What might tempt or compel someone here? Chess, after all, is not baseball; it is not as if the lights were too low, or Black lost the pawn in the sun.
In a book titled How Not to Play Chess, Duchamp’s friend Grandmaster Eugene A. Znosko-Borovsky wrote:

The great privilege of our game is that there is nothing hidden; everyone can see all that is on the chessboard, and, what is more, no piece can remain unnoticed. It is necessary only to be able to see […]⁽⁴⁾

Another grandmaster friend of Duchamp, Larry Evans, continues our theme in a book titledThe 10 Most Common Chess Mistakes … and how to avoid them!:

After all, everything is open and above-board. The element of deception is at a minimum, and there are no closed hands, as in bridge.⁽⁵⁾

This might seem familiar to some of you, even to those of you who don’t read esoteric chess literature. It might remind you of remark 129 of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations:

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. (One is unable to notice something–because it is always before one’s eyes.) The real foundations of his enquiry do not strike a man at all. Unless that fact has at some time struck him.–And this means: we fail to be struck by what, once seen, is most striking and most powerful.

Or of this early claim in The Blue Book:

This kind of mistake recurs again and again in philosophy; e.g. when we are puzzled about the nature of time, when time seems to us a queer thing. We are most strongly tempted to think that here are things hidden, something we can see from the outside but which we can’t look into. And yet nothing of the sort is the case. It is not new facts about time which we want to know. All the facts that concern us lie open before us. [BB: p. 6]⁽⁶⁾

Or from remark 89 of the Investigations:

We want to understand something that is already in plain view.

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Figure 3
Marcel Duchamp, Trébuchet, 1917/1964

Figure 4
Max Ernst, The Hat Makes the Man, 1920

Let us go from one kind of Duchampian trébuchet to another. Consider these two images:

Marcel Duchamp’s Trébuchet (Fig. 3) Max Ernst’s The Hat Makes the Man⁽⁷⁾(Fig. 4)

The first, Duchamp’s Trébuchet, is a photograph of a 1964 reproduction of a lost 1917 readymade. The second is Max Ernst’s mixed media work from 1920: cut-and-pasted paper, pencil, ink and watercolor on paper. The first has all the initial appearances of an ordinary, store-bought coat and hat rack, whereas the second looks alien and bizarre (in the 1930s English of the Blue and Brown Books: queer; in Freud’s German: unheimlich, uncanny.). This contrast between thefamiliar and the unfamiliar interested Wittgenstein throughout his career, and plays a central role in examining our subtitled theme of Wittgenstein on mistakes of surface and depth.
I want to ask you to indulge me and perform a Wittgensteinean experiment (which I will take advantage of later). While studying these two images, ask yourself: what do you experience when you look at them; in particular, do you have a feeling of familiarity?
In order to force the experiment, before studying these images read the following from Wittgenstein’s Brown Book:

24. Let us now go back to the idea of a feeling of familiarity, which arises when I see familiar objects. Pondering about the question whether there is such a feeling or not, we are likely to gaze at some object and say, “Don’t I have a particular feeling when I look at my old coat and hat?” (p. 180)

In this thematic neighborhood Wittgenstein’s philosophical language often employs metaphors that are aesthetic or come from the arts: looking at pictures, going to the movies, listening to music. My use of the two artists’ coat and hat racks is partly designed to make more transparent what Wittgenstein achieves philosophically with his use of these metaphors. In one of the most explicit statements of his own methodology, Wittgenstein writes that

–I wanted to put that picture before him [that is: us], and hisacceptance of the picture consists in his now being inclined to regard a given case differently: that is, to compare it withthis rather than that set of pictures. I have changed his way of looking at things. […] [PI: 144]⁽⁸⁾

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Figure 5
A duck/rabbit image
Wittgenstein’s philosophical goal is not to produce theories or theses, but to change our way of looking at things, to change our way of seeing the world. (My reading moves into the center of Wittgenstein’s methodology his discussions of Jastrow’s duck/rabbit image.(Fig. 5))⁽⁹⁾ My strategy in this paper is to make Duchamp’s and Ernst’s works of art emblems for two distinct ways of changing the way we see the world. For ease of reference, I will label Duchamp’s way the “surface” way, and Ernst’s the “depth” way. I see Duchamp and Wittgenstein in alliance here. If Ernst needs a philosophical depth companion, let’s give him Vulgar Freudianism. Duchamp’s and Wittgenstein’s way, the “nothing is hidden”⁽¹⁰⁾ way, appeals to what is before our eyes. Ernst’s work, by contrast, appeals to depth, to a structure hidden beneath the surface.(Fig. 6)

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Figure 6
Pictures on the left showing (from left to right) René Magritte, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, and Man Ray, attending Bill Copleys exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum, line up holding a copy of the exhibition catalogue, in which announces “Tremendous Deliriums”; on the right, Ernst turns around with his head down, while Duchamp poses his fingers at, and Man Ray raises his cane as if to strike him. Photograph by Ed van der Elsken, 1966.

In order to clarify what I mean by the “depth” way, let us now look more deeply at The Hat Makes the Man. If you had a feeling of unfamiliarity, or eerie strangeness, when looking at it before, part of the reason might be the German words in the corner: none of them are capitalized. There is a remark on this phenomenon in Wittgenstein’s Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, vol. 1:

RPP I 1087. German nouns printed in lower-case letters in certain modern poets. A German noun all in lower-case letters looks alien; to recognize it, one has to read it attentively. It is supposed to strike us as new, as if we had seen it now for the first time.–⁽¹¹⁾

If that is not enough, in the Ernst work the words are a portmanteau of the made up, the nonsensical and the rare: a bit like a Teutonic Lewis Carroll poem: Jabberwocky, jawohl.⁽¹²⁾ A transcription of Ernst’s Germanic words are⁽¹³⁾:

bedecktsamiger stapel-mensch nacktsamiger wasserformer (“edelformer”) kleidsame nervatur auch umpressnerven!

Half these words are not really German. Nervatur is a specialized scientific term for a pattern of nerves or veins, and bedecktsamiger and nacktsamiger are rare scientific terms. We ⁽¹⁴⁾ might translate the phrase:

angiospermous stack- man gymnospermous waterformer (“nobleformer”) flattering nervation also !transpressnerves!

The American Heritage College Dictionary, Third edition, Houghton Mifflin, 1993, informs us of the meaning of the rare terms:

angiosperm n., A plant whose ovules are enclosed in an ovary; a flowering plant. gymnosperm n., A plant, such as a cycad or conifer, whose seeds are not enclosed within an ovary.

And, for those whose college biology is receding:

ovule n., A minute structure in seed plants, containing the embryo sac and surrounded by the nucellus, that develops into a seed after fertilization.

Both German scientific nouns are direct translations of the Greek scientific terms; if English worked the same way, then “angiosperm” and “gymnosperm” would be “coveredseed” and nakedseed”.

Combining the words and the image, we can see that the work is partly a meditation on what is hidden and what is unclothed, and that Ernst has uncovered for us a coveredseed. This is a picture of a nerve system, and Ernst is portraying an underlying skeletal or nerve structure.

Let us now add the (linguistically) unproblematic French below the German:

(c’est le chapeau qui fait l’homme)
(le style c’est le tailleur)

And the translation:

(the hat makes the man)
(style [the manner, the tone of the man] is the tailor) ⁽¹⁵⁾

The unproblematic French gives us the wonderfully complicated further point that it’s style all the way down! If we add that “chapeau” is also an old slang word for condom,⁽¹⁶⁾ then the covering of seed and the image itself become spectacularly complex. Ernst was both a student of philosophy and of psychiatry; if ever a picture called for a Freudian interpretation, even a vulgar one, it is this.

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Figure 7
Marcel Duchamp, Photograph of
Duchamp’s Studio, 1916-1917

Ernst has taken the familiar sight of a man and a hat and, going beneath the surface, made it unfamiliar. In contrast, Duchamp has taken a supposedly familiar, ordinary object, and defamiliarized it by a change in location and status. (The change is what Russell and Bradley would have called a change in external relations.) Duchamp’s Trébuchet is areadymade: a genre that Duchamp invented and named. The idea, or, perhaps, more accurately, the propaganda, is to take a found object – often a mass produced manufactured object; a familiar, repeated object – and turn it into a work of art, perhaps by signing it, perhaps by placing it in a museum. The legend is that in 1917, while an expatriate from the European war, Marcel Duchamp purchased a coat rack, nailed it to the floor of his New York City apartment,(Fig. 7) and then named this new work of art: “Trébuchet“. The Ernst and Duchamp works have this in common: both take the familiar and then make it unfamiliar: it is the way they make it unfamiliar that is different.
Putting the art works aside for a moment, as a way of further illustrating the differences between the ways of depth and surface, let us go back to the question of what makes us go wrong, what leads us to mistake? Familiarly, one side answers “deception” – whether psychological, social, or political: there is something hidden that needs to be uncovered; we need to leave our usual, surface haunts for the unfamiliar, where the truth lies. (Sometimes the theory is that identifying the deception accomplishes the uncovering of the truth.) As in the Ernst work all is not what it appears: in order to understand the men before our eyes, we have to go down to their underlying structure. Wittgenstein, on the contrary, says in theInvestigations “…For what is hidden, for example, is of no interest to us” [PI: 126]⁽¹⁷⁾ and:

361. In order to climb into the depths one does not need to travel very far; no, for that you do not need to abandon your immediate and accustomed environment. [RPP I]

To go down into the depths you don’t need to travel far; you can do it in your own backgarden. [CV p. 57]⁽¹⁸⁾

Or, from a draft of the forward to Philosophical Remarks:

I might say: if the place I want to reach could only be climbed up to by a ladder, I would give up trying to get there. For the place to which I really have to go is one that I must actually be at already.

Anything that can be reached with a ladder does not interest me. [CV: p. 10]

Going from one kind of scripture to another, I am reminded of G-d’s directions to Moses in Deuteronomy 30 11-14:

“Surely, this Instruction which I enjoin upon you this day is not too baffling for you, nor is it beyond reach. It is not in the heavens, that you should say, ‘Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?’ Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say: ‘Who among us can cross to the other side of the sea and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?’ No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth, and in your heart, to observe it.”

It is perhaps now time to summon the old self-referential joke: there are two kinds of people in the world – those that divide kinds of people into two and those who do not. We should not confuse the surface/depth dichotomy with another one: those who see the world as problematic and those who do not. It is hard to imagine a philosopher (as opposed to, say, a politician) in the unproblematic camp.

Let us, then, quickly eliminate the vulgar interpretation that attention to the surface means simple common sense and that the world is uncomplicated and unproblematic. [Ross Perot’s voice and accent are in the background, saying: “It’s really all very simple.”] Both the surface skaters and the depth divers see the world as bubbingly complicated. Both believe we are inclined (at least at times), to see the world wrong. Both believe that the world as it strikes us requires a great deal of analysis – but they locate the complications in different places, give different accounts of where and how we go wrong, and engage in different kinds of analyses.⁽¹⁹⁾
Where are we now? In the context of our surface/depth dichotomy we have an overlapping and crisscrossing [PI: 67] of various themes: how to make a mistake, what is hidden, what lies open to plain view, and, lurking [hidden!?] in the background, the continual debates on Wittgenstein’s alleged quietism: the accusation that philosophy requires not investigation but renunciation.⁽²⁰⁾ The central texts of Wittgenstein’s alleged quietism are, of course,Investigations 124-6, where Wittgenstein writes that “Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language […] [i]t leaves everything as it is […] Philosophy simply puts everything before us, and neither explains nor deduces anything. […]”)⁽²¹⁾

Let us begin to unravel these threads by returning to the coat and hat rack images experiment and focusing on the question of familiarity. Do you have some particular feeling of familiarity? (To those of you familiar with Wittgenstein, this will, of course, be a familiar experiment with some familiar answers; what I hope to accomplish is to put it into a new – or, at least, less examined — context.)

Consider the following group of remarks from the Philosophical Investigations.⁽²²⁾ (Non-incidentally, these remarks are prefaced by an assertion that many – but most especially depth investigators — find one of the most annoying in Wittgenstein’s corpus: PI: 599: … “Philosophy only states what everyone admits”. Often those who find a quietism of renunciation in Wittgenstein also see him as bullying instead of arguing.)

602. Asked “Did you recognize your desk when you entered your room this morning?”–I should no doubt say “Certainly!” And yet it would be misleading to say that an act of recognition had taken place. Of course the desk was not strange to me; I was not surprised to see it, as I should have been if another one had been standing there, or some unfamiliar kind of object.
603. No one will say that every time I enter my room, my long-familiar surroundings, there is enacted a recognition of all that I see and have seen hundreds of times before.
604. It is easy to have a false picture of the processes called “recognizing”; as if recognizing always consisted in comparing two impressions with one another. It is as if I carried a picture of an object with me and used it to perform an identification of an object as the one represented by the picture. Our memory seems to us to be the agent of such a comparison, by preserving a picture of what has been seen before, or by allowing us to look into the past (as if down a spy-glass).
605. And it is not so much as if I were comparing the object with a picture set beside it, but as if the object coincided with the picture. So I see only one thing, not two.

We began this paper with a (chess) mistake. What mistake is Wittgenstein warning us against here? In this context Wittgenstein is being fairly explicit: the mistake is to assume that because S recognizes y, an act of recognition must have taken place. This seemingly simple mistake opens the door to a string of others. Since even superficial investigation (introspection will do) reveals that there is not always a conscious act of recognition (as I hope your own familiarity experiment and experiences have shown), that (alleged) act is driven underground – the depth arguer has to claim there is a hidden mechanism underlying our overt behavior. Wittgenstein’s telling of the depth story is an oft told tale: failure to appreciate differences leads one to assume essences (or is it the other way around?); since there must be an essence – a seed – and since there is obviously no gymnosperm[nakedseed], there must be an angiosperm [a coveredseed].⁽²³⁾ And then, as Hume says in the An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, “We are got into fairy land, long ere we have reached the last steps of our theory.”⁽²⁴⁾

This is a particular breed of a more general kind of Wittgensteinean warning of How Not to Do Philosophy. PI: 35 discusses the “’characteristic experiences’ of pointing”, connects it directly to our problem via the Wittgensteinean device of a parenthetical footnote [“(Recognizing, wishing, remembering, etc. .)”], then draws a more general moral:

PI: 36. And we do here what we do in a host of similar cases: because we cannot specify any one bodily action which we call pointing to the shape (as opposed, for example, to the colour), we say that a spiritual [mental, intellectual] activity corresponds to these words.
Where our language suggests a body and there is none: there, we should like to say, is a spirit.(Fig. 8)

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Figure 8
Marcel Duchamp, Tu m’, 1918

Wittgenstein then turns instead to a host of ordinary, contextually particular, surface considerations:

37. What is the relation between name and thing named?–Well, what is it? Look at language-game (2) or at another one: there you can see the sort of thing this relation consists in. This relation may also consist, among many other things, in the fact that hearing the name calls before our mind the picture of what is named; and it also consists, among other things, in the name’s being written on the thing named or being pronounced when that thing is pointed at.

Going back to recognition and familiarity, we can connect PI: 37 to PG: 166 [the original home of PI: 602ff.]:

PG: 166 So the multiplicity of familiarity, as I understand it, is that of feeling at home in what I see. It might consist in such facts as these: my glance doesn’t move restlessly (inquiringly) around the object. I don’t keep changing the way I look at it, but immediately fix on one and hold it steady.

Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, vol. 1 also makes the connection explicit:

RPP I 166: It may be asked: Does something always come into my head when I understand a word?! (The following question is similar: “When I look at a familiar object, does an act of recognition always take place?”)

The philosophical mistake, the philosopher’s mistake, is to search for something extra in the explanation of our ordinary goings on.⁽²⁵⁾ (And even worse, but almost inevitable, is to findthat something extra: this structure or that. Here, in Wittgenstein’s lights, the philosopher is like the cheap stage magician, placing the rabbit in the hat to pull it out later.)

There is a familiar (to the point of being well trodden) Wittgenstein path here: this illusory extra will then serve as the criterion (and, if met, the guarantee) of an activity that, to the contrary, only makes sense, can only be seen as the activity it is, or indeed, an activity at all, when looked on as part of a practice. This is (partly) the concern of PI: 149 and the famous rule following sections of the Investigations:

PI: 149. If one says that knowing the ABC is a state of the mind, one is thinking of a state of a mental apparatus (perhaps of the brain) by means of which we explain the manifestations of that knowledge. Such a state is called a disposition. But there are objections to speaking of a state of the mind here, inasmuch as there ought to be two different criteria for such a state: a knowledge of the construction of the apparatus, quite apart from what it does. (Nothing would be more confusing here than to use the words “conscious” and “unconscious” for the contrast between states of consciousness and dispositions. For this pair of terms covers up a grammatical difference.)

The moral so far is: if depth is taken as the a priori requirement of a hidden, underlying structure, then the pursuit of that alleged depth and structure is a task of illusion, superstition: (often under the name of science) a pseudo-scientific alchemy.

But there is another (not at all completely unrelated) sense to depth. Wittgenstein writes inZettel of the real (it has happened) danger of the real (non-illusory) loss of real (not based on a mistake) depth:

Z 456. Some philosophers (or whatever you like to call them) suffer from what may be called “loss of problems”. Then everything seems quite simple to them, no deep problems seem to exist any more, the world becomes broad and flat and loses all depth, and what they write becomes immeasurably shallow and trivial.⁽²⁶⁾

>This is the real question we have been asking all along: How does the world become deep? Or, somewhat more precisely in the light of our previous discussion: How does the surface take on a depth?

Wittgenstein sometimes profitably investigated these questions by examining the more particular question: What happens when one comes to understand something?⁽²⁷⁾

(Perhaps the warning is unnecessary, but attention to art helps remind us that understanding is not a binary on/off operation: it is not as if the internal mechanism finally works and now I understand Duchamp’s Trébuchet; it is not as if I have a feeling and then suddenly I understand Ernst’s The Hat Makes the Man. The illusion that a non-limited, non-contextual sense can be made of complete understanding goes along with the illusion that a non-limited, non-contextual sense can be made of a hidden guarantee of our practices.)

How, in coming to understand something, does it acquire a legitimate kind of depth? We can now answer this by putting all the elements together. The answer is: by putting all the elements together. (In a local way of course, and for a time.)

Wittgenstein continually argues there is nothing [no thing] extra, added on, in our coming to understand. Coming to understand, as the relation between name and thing named [PI: 37], as the multiplicity of familiarity [PG: 166], is a plurality of commonplaces: it is the manner that makes the man. In philosophy we come to understand by seeing connections:

[PI: 122] A main source of our failure to understand is that we do not perspicuously overview [ubersehen] the use of our words. –Our grammar is lacking in this sort of perspicuity [Ubersichtlichkeit]. A perspicuous presentation [ubersichtliche Darstellung] produces just that understanding which consists in ‘seeing connections’. Hence the importance of finding and inventingintermediate cases.
The concept of a perspicuous presentation is of fundamental significance for us. It earmarks the form of account we give, the way we look at things. (Is this a ‘Weltanschauung’?)⁽²⁸⁾

What changes when we come to understand are not the facts, but the attitude. The change is a change of perspective; a rearrangement of what has been in front of us all along.

Coming to understand is the both the substance and the style [never mere style] of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. It is coming to understand: process, not conclusion. Through his use of examples, his meandering methodology, his intermediate cases, his juxtaposition of situations, Wittgenstein is showing us how the surface acquires depth. The manner makes the books.

It is in this fashion, as well, that we come to understand Duchamp’s Trébuchet. Let’s look for a moment at the multiplicity and juxtaposition of meanings here:

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Figure 9
The Medieval war machine

Figure 10
The cucking stool

Figure 11
The ducking stool

Duchamp was a lover of many things, including lists, dictionaries, and self-reference. High on his list of loves was dictionaries.⁽²⁹⁾ If he had looked up “trébuchet” in an ordinary French dictionary he would have found the following three senses:

1. A medieval war machine [which the coat rack visually resembles];(Fig. 9)
2. A bird trap; and
3. A very accurate scale used in laboratories.
If he also looked up “trébuchet” in a comprehensive English dictionary, he would have seen the additional sense:
4. A cucking- or ducking-stool.⁽³⁰⁾(Figs. 10, 11)
In addition, there is:
5. A pun with the homonymic French verb “trébucher“, which means “to stumble or trip”, which is precisely what one would do with a coat rack nailed to the floor.
And, of course, there is
6. A technical chess meaning, a mutual or reciprocal zugzwang, where whoever moves loses.
The image and the multiplicity of meanings work together to change our way of looking at things: Duchamp has inclined us to see the unfamiliar in a formerly familiar and common place hat rack.

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Figure 12
Marcel Duchamp, Door: 11, rue Larrey, 1927

Two of Wittgenstein’s students wrote that:

Wittgenstein once described the situation in philosophy thus: ‘It is as if a man is standing in a room facing a wall on which are painted a number of dummy doors. Wanting to get out, he fumblingly tries to open them, vainly trying them all, one after the other, over and over again. But, of course, it is quite useless. And all the time, although he doesn’t realize it, there is a real door in the wall behind his back, and all he has to do is to turn around and open it. To help him get out of the room all we have to do is to get him to look in a different direction. But it’s hard to do this, since, wanting to get out, he resists our attempts to turn him away from where he thinks the exit must be.’⁽³¹⁾(Fig. 12)

A serious warning is necessary here. The description I just read makes it seem a little too easy to dissolve philosophical problems: it has its truth about Wittgenstein’s methodology, but it has to be counterbalanced by attention to the theme that philosophical problems cannot be dismissed, cannot be renounced, but have to be worked through. However, since I have examined this theme of working through elsewhere, and since I’ll shortly close with a similar warning, I’ll bracket it off in this essay.

We here have a constant in Wittgenstein’s career: Early, Middle, and Late Wittgenstein focused on the agent’s attitude. It is through changes in the agent’s attitude that the surface acquires depth. Wittgenstein, of course, located the ethical in that attitude. As early as 1916, Wittgenstein recorded in his Notebooks:

In order to live happily I must be in agreement with the world. And that is what “being happy” means. [NB: p. 75]
The will is an attitude of the subject to the world. [NB: p. 87]

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Figure 13
Original version in Wittgenstein’s
Tractatus

This kind of view survives in the Tractatus’ discussion of perspective:

5.5423 To perceive a complex means to perceive that its constituents are related to one another in such and such a way.
This no doubt also explains why there are two possible ways of seeing the figure⁽³²⁾ as a cube; and all similar phenomena. For we really see two different facts.
(If I look in the first place at the corners marked a and only glance at the b’s, then the a’s appear to be in front, and vice versa). (Fig. 13)

And in his discussion of ethics:

6.43 If the good or bad exercise of the will does alter the world, it can alter only the limits of the world, not the facts–not what can be expressed by means of language.
In short the effect must be that it becomes an altogether different world. It must, so to speak, wax and wane as a whole.
The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man.

Throughout his career Wittgenstein’s attitude toward attitude remains the same. A real change, however, is that in his later philosophy, Wittgenstein becomes much more concerned with diagnosing the reasons some are not satisfied with that answer.
The temptation, Wittgenstein comes to claim, is to confuse the illusory notion of depth with the real notion of seeing connections, of really seeing what is before our eyes. In order to see the world in depth one needs to really pay attention to the surface:

RFM: p. 102 (Here we stumble on a remarkable and characteristic phenomenon in philosophical investigation: The difficulty–I might say–isn’t one of finding the solution; it is one of recognizing something as the solution. We have already said everything. Not something that follows from this; no, just this is the solution!
This, I believe, hangs together with our wrongly expecting an explanation; whereas a description is the solution of the difficulty, if we give it the right place in our consideration. If we dwell upon it and do not try to get beyond it.)

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Figure 14
Photograph of Duchamp playing chess,
circa 1930s

What kind of mistake is 1. … Ke4, rushing in to take the pawn? What kind of mistake is failing to see the connections before us? They are not identical, but they are cousins. The chess player rushes in to take the pawn; eager to win material he is too aggressive, moving too close too soon, instead of taking his time.⁽³³⁾ By failing to notice what is there, he ends up on the wrong side of a trébuchet. The chess player does not need a secret revealed, a card turned over; what he needs is to control himself.(Fig. 14)

So, partly too, the philosopher. Wittgenstein’s chapter “Philosophy” in the so-called “Big Typescript” of 1932 includes the fragment:

PO: 162-63: Work on philosophy is – as work in architecture frequently is – actually more of a //a kind of// work on oneself. On one’s own conception. On the way one sees things. (And what one demands of them.)

And even more directly, the chapter begins with the following heading in capital letters:

DIFFICULTY OF PHILOSOPHY NOT THE INTELLECTUAL DIFFICULTY OF THE SCIENCES, BUT THE DIFFICULTY OF A CHANGE OF ATTITUDE. RESISTANCES OF THE WILL MUST BE OVERCOME. (PO: 162)

And now, as is both rhetorically and philosophically required, I will close with a warning. We should not think of the difficulty or resistance here as a psychological matter, as an individual’s quirk. Wittgenstein’s sights were broader, surveying (and diagnosing) his whole culture. As he wrote in the Foreword to Philosophical Remarks:

In these matters the individual needs neither psychoanalysis nor shock therapy; it isphilosophy that is required: a philosophical striving after clarity and perspicuity, a philosophical straining (and training) to constantly conquer temptation anew and to see the sense visible amidst the nonsense and the nonsense clothed as sense.⁽³⁵⁾

Notes

1.The Collected Works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Past Masters, InteLex Corporation. In referring to Wittgenstein’s works I will use the Wittgenstein industry standard abbreviations:

BB: Blue and Brown Books
PI: Philosophical Investigations
RPP I: Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1
LWPP I: Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1
PG: Philosophical Grammar
CV: Culture and Value
RFM: Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics
PO: Philosophical Occasions
PR: Philosophical Remarks
Z: Zettel

Unless otherwise indicated, references will be to the section number.

2. Vitaly Halberstadt and Marcel Duchamp, L’Opposition et les Cases Conjugées sont Reconciliées[Opposition and Sister Squares are Reconciled] (Paris/Bruxelles: L’Echiquier, 1932) text in English, French and German.

3. Halberstadt and Duchamp, p. 9, Diagram 15. In a position almost identical to Duchamp’s Diagram 15 (our diagram 1), Aron Nimzovich, My System [original German, Mein System, 1925; first English translation 1929] p. 69, gives essentially the same analysis (without, however, using the term “trébuchet”):

WHITE: Kd6, Pc5
BLACK: Ka5, Pc6

the continuation is: 1. K-Q7!, K-Kt4; 2. K-Q6; but not 1. K-Q6?, because of …. K-Kt4, and White has no good move left, and is in fact himself in Zugzwang, in a strait jacket, shall we say?

4. Eugene A. Znosko-Borovsky, How Not to Play Chess, ed. Fred Reinfeld (Dover, 1949) [first English version 1931], p. 31

5. Larry Evans, The 10 Most Common Chess Mistakes … and how to avoid them! (Cardoza, 1998 and 2000)123

6. See also PI: 89.

7. Max Ernst, The Hat Makes the Man. 1920. Cut-and-pasted paper, pencil, ink and watercolor on paper, 14 x 18″ (35.6 x 45.7 cm) The Museum of Modern Art, NY.

8. For a different discussion of the same passage and point, see my “How Old Are These Bones? Putnam, Wittgenstein and Verification”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume LXXIII (1999)

9. See, for example, PI: p. 194.

10.See PI: 435: “…How do sentences do it?–Don’t you know? For nothing is hidden.” See also PG: p. 104: “How does a sentence do it? Nothing is hidden.”

11. The remark continues:
But what interests me here? This–that the impression can’t at first be described more exactly than by means of words like ‘queer’, ‘unaccustomed’. Only later follow, so to speak, analyses of the impression. (The reaction of recoil from the strangely written word.)

12. Wittgenstein referred directly to Carroll in PG: 43, PI: 13, PI: p. 198, and LWPP I: 599.

13. My discussion of Ernst’s German is overwhelmingly indebted to Ned Humphrey, a freelance German translator (and my freshman year college roommate). The translations are completely his, and he gave me the Teutonic Carroll phrase as well as other bits of wisdom. I could not be more grateful for his generous help.

14. Here “we” means Ned Humphrey.

15. Thanks to Amelie Rorty for the nuances.

16. Thanks again to Amelie Rorty.

17. See also PO: 177. The surface explorers and the depth spelunkers call for and practice two very different kinds of investigations (and art). (The surrealisms of Duchamp, on the one hand, and Ernst, Magritte, and Dali, on the other, are really quite different.)

18. From MS 131 182: 2.9.1946. The editors footnote as a variant: “indeed for this you need not even leave your most immediate & familiar surroundings I need not for this your most immediate…”.

19. We might call the depth analysis “vertical” and the surface analysis “horizontal”. However, I’ll leave these metaphors to this endnote. An implicit burden of the rest of the paper is to see if sense can be made of any of the metaphors.

20. In formulating the accusation of quietism this way, I am influenced by James Conant, “On Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Mathematics,” section V (pp. 209-213).

21. See John McDowell’s excellent discussions in his “Meaning and Intentionality in Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy”, in P. French, et. al., The Wittgenstein Legacy, Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. xvii (University of Notre Dame Press, 1992); and Mind and World (Harvard, 1994) 92-3, and Afterword III (pp. 175-180). I previously discussed quietism in my “One Wittgenstein?” in E. Reck, ed., From Frege to Wittgenstein: Perspectives on Early Analytic Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2001), from which I have cannibalized part of this note.

22. The origin of most of this group is PG: pp. 165-69

23. PG: p. 74 has all the familiar elements: (at least) understanding, essence, family resemblances:

35 The problem that concerns us could be summed up roughly thus: “Must one see an image of the colour blue in one’s mind whenever one reads the word ‘blue’ with understanding?” People have often asked this question and have commonly answered no; they have concluded from this answer that the characteristic process of understanding is just a different process which we’ve not yet grasped.–Suppose then by “understanding” we mean what makes the difference between reading with understanding and reading without understanding; what does happen when we understand? Well, “Understanding” is not the name of a single process accompanying reading or hearing, but of more or less interrelated processes against a background, or in a context, of facts of a particular kind, viz. the actual use of a learnt language or languages.–We say that understanding is a “psychological process”, and this label is misleading, in this as in countless other cases. It compares understanding to a particular process like translation from one language into another, and it suggests the same conception of thinking, knowing, wishing, intending, etc. That is to say, in all these cases we see that what we would perhaps naively suggest as the hallmark of such a process is not present in every case or even in the majority of cases. And our next step is to conclude that the essence of the process is something difficult to grasp that still awaits discovery. For we say: since I use the word “understand” in all these cases, there must be some one thing which happens in every case and which is the essence of understanding (expecting, wishing etc.). Otherwise, why should I call them by all the same name?

Painting in Three Dimensions

Painting is dead. When I first came upon this statement, I embraced it as a challenge. Challenge and risk taking are what fosters the creative evolution. Painting is far from dead, but if it is to continue to be a vital component in the arts, if it is to continue to evolve, then painting must be taken to new dimensions. I have taken this as literally as possible in my three-dimensional relief paintings, the development of which are integrally connected to two-dimensional contour and illusionistic painting devices.

Relief has been a part of image making since humans began to make images, with examples found as early as the Paleolithic era. Traditionally it has been recognized as a form of sculpture, however the concept of relief is primarily pictorial because relief, like painting or drawing, is founded on the emergence of an image from a flat surface. Contemporary painters have made use of this attribute by utilizing modes of relief in their paintings, adding bulges or layered materials for actual depth. The inclusion of the third dimension by modern artists has led to new interpretations of relief in painting, relaxing the definition of relief as a purely sculptural term.

Expanding on this idea, I have developed a way to release painting from the physical frame. I have created a unique relief painting support made of polystyrene covered in a soft cotton ground. The individually constructed and shaped forms interconnect, somewhat like a relief puzzle. The connections create an implied line consistent with the edges of the shapes in the original two-dimensional contour design. Through saturated, layered color, the illusions used to create a sense of depth in two-dimensional painting are then used on the forms. These covered and painted forms are sometimes further enhanced through the application of flock to the surface. By being removed from a physical frame, these intings, no longer contained, are allowed to visually expand into space extending across walls as well as outward toward the viewer. The pieces created in this manner can be seen below or at www.isu.edu/art. Scroll down to the Davis Gallery and click on ‘Painting in Three Dimensions by Sarah Krank.

click to enlarge

Figure 1
Marcel Duchamp,
Nude Descending
a Staircase,
No. 2, 1912

It seemed natural to offer this advancement to the Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (Fig. 1) by Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp’s Nude had been created to show the dynamic motion of a young lady as she descended the stairs, but the painting remained on a flat surface, the woman described in mostly hard, angular lines. I wanted to take the figure and allow her to emerge as a three-dimensional woman while keeping the intensity and power of her movements. I wanted to combine those hard, angular lines with the organic feel that Duchamp only suggests. To keep the feeling of the force of her body as she moved downward, I needed her to be big–nearly nine feet tall.

I named her Nude Redescending a Staircase (Fig.2). She begins at a physical distance, the forms in the upper left corner of the work extending only about an inch off the surface. Then, as she descends (or redescends) she gradually increases into the viewers space coming forward a full 22 inches. The oblique angles allow her to have an abstracted actual figure with illusions of light moving and playing across her form. Each individual piece is slightly rounded. Even the hardest edges have a gentleness about them thanks to the cotton ground.

click images to enlarge

Figure 2

Sarah C. Krank, Nude Redescending a Staircase

I wanted to honor Duchamp’s design as well as the fury it created, so I stayed as true to his color choices as possible. I created a canvas back drop for the nude so that the golden and green hues could continue to stand out against the dark background. The relief pieces are attached to a wooden form cut to resemble the stairs in the original painting.
This is hung over the canvas and the paint on the back drop continues over this support. Last, additions of small pieces of old wooden shingles were added to the surface in homage to the suggestion that the Duchamp work looked like an explosion in a shingle factory.

The tradition of incorporating the knowledge of other artists by referencing their work in your own style is invaluable. Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending is an enduring landmark, a masterpiece. To have the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of this giant of the art world has enabled me to transcend the visual plane of this painting into three dimensions and begin to incorporate Duchamp’s geometry into my organic world.

click images to enlarge

Figure 3

Sarah C. Krank, Constructed Relief Painting IV – Iris

click images to enlarge

Figure 4

Sarah C. Krank, Constructed Relief Painting III – Nude

Figure 5
Sarah C. Krank, Constructed Relief Painting I – Montana

Lost Object-Found

Among the 1987 Centennial and Happy Birthday Marcel events in Philadelphia was a display of Duchamp’s works at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, many of which were ready-mades.

They were in the long gallery leading toward the Arensberg Collection. There were many interesting labels and citations to read. Near the 1916 Comb inscribed with the wonderfully cryptic message: “3 or 4 drops of height have nothing to do with savagery” was Duchamp’s proud comment about its durability: “During 48 years it has kept the characteristics of a true ready made; no beauty,
no ugliness, nothing particularly esthetic about it….”

click to enlarge

Figure 1
Label explaining
lost ready-made

As I continued my slow and thoughtful walk, reading as I went, I saw a little etching done in 1959 entitled Tire a quatre epingles [Pulled at 4 Corners] or “Dressed to the Nines.” The museum’s label mentioned that it was the title he’d given a chimney ventilator, a 1915 ready-made that was lost! (Fig. 1)

“Lost?” I said to myself; “I wonder if anyone is looking for it and if it can be found.” Upon arriving home, I decided to keep an eye open for it. I discussed it with a friend who thought he’d seen it in the corner of the restaurant kitchen where he was working as a pastry chef. I fumbled around in my attic and basement, thinking it just might turn up.

After checking the Yellow Pages under R, M, .D, and V, I decided that this was a long-term project and let it slip out of mind for a while, thinking that one day it would emerge on its own accord.

Several years later I stopped into Niece’s Lumberyard in Lambertville, NJ to buy some art supplies. In an almost Proustian moment of ecstatic memory, I realized that I had found the lost ready made! There it was . . . a wall ventilator, a perfect analog of a formal dress shirt, its pleats pressed and shiny white, ready to wear to a special event–pulled at four corners, dressed to the nines. (Figs. 2,
3) It even had a little lever allowing it to shift quietly like a kinetic sculpture.

click images to enlarge

Figure 2
Figure 3

Wall ventilator
Wall ventilator

If I were to install it on my bedroom wall, it might qualify as a “disguised ready made.” If it were to be exhibited at a museum, perhaps it would be considered the first “forged ready made.”

Realizing that documentation is important, I enclose the receipt of its purchase as provenance– $5.44, 07/14/90. (Fig. 4)

Later I discovered that more than ten of the original ready mades had been lost, some of which were re-made in small editions by Arturo Schwarz and Ulf Linde.

However, there are some that remain a puzzle and an ongoing project for me. For example, when asked to design the installation of “First Papers of Surrealism” in 1942, (Fig. 5) Duchamp purchased 16 miles of string. He used only 1 mile of string for the show. What happened to the other 15 miles?

Figure 4
Figure 5

Receipt of the purchase
Marcel Duchamp, Installation
for the exhibition of First Papers of Surrealism, 1942

Stretched out from mid-town Manhattan, it could measure a radius that would reach Paterson, NJ, Newark Airport, Coney Island, Kennedy Airport, and some point in Long Island Sound south of Norwalk, CT. If rolled into a ball, what would 15 miles of string look like?

What would its measurements be?

click to enlarge

Figure 6
Nura Petrov with
the strings

Some of the string can be found in my work. (Fig. 6) Skeins of it occur in Kyria Anthusa’s tangled loom, a construction of wooden branches that I made in 1995. Several yards of it, which I came upon in a ditch beside Bursonville Rd. c.1997, are hiding in a photo-copy collage from the same year. If you have any thoughts on this or other lost ready mades, drop me a line (or a standard stoppage) at my e-mail address: nurapetrov@conceptualist.com

(EDITOR’S NOTE: In regard to Duchamp’s “Pulled at Four Pins,” it is surprising that almost 50 years after the now lost original Readymade of 1915, Duchamp would have memorized its appearance as vividly as he did for the etching. For the catalogue of the1973/1974 exhibition “Marcel Duchamp: A Retrospective” (Philadelphia Museum of Art / Museum of Modern Art, NY) the American photographer Peter Hujar was assigned to take pictures of buildings in New York in which Duchamp had lived. While on Fire Island he also took several photographs of a chimney cowl similar to the one depicted in Duchamp’s etching. Such a chimney cowl was discovered and legally dismantled by ASRL intern Adam Kleinman in the summer of 2000 on a midtown-Manhattan rooftop. Together with an exhaustive collection of literature on both the variety and history of chimney cowls, the object is now part of the permanent collection at ASRL, NY. – Thomas Girst) (Figs. 7, 8)

Figure 7
Figure 8

Marcel Duchamp,Pulled at Four Pins, 1964
Chimney Cowl,ASRL/NY, ca. 1910’s

Marcel’s Dream as told by Jacques Villon

When he was in grammar school Marcel had a dream, the same dream, over and over. He told me about it many times. He dreamt of a small pond in a meadow. It always smelled like rotting weeds. A ring of golden reeds grew up around the pond, hiding it. The reeds would sprout up, curve around, and head back into the earth. They wove themselves into a network of tunnels. In summer, in the dry season, the pond became a patch of mud. Two small pipes stuck out of the mud at odd angles. Marcel became fascinated by them. He longed to retrieve them. One day he took off his shoes and pushed up his pantlegs. He stepped into the pond, sank into the mud up to his knees, and made his way to the pipes. They were covered with dark slime. He knew there must be many more in graceful curves or square configurations in a network beneath the mud. When he pulled, they came out easily. He wiped them with his sleeve and saw they were made of brass. He fashioned them into a musical instrument of his own design. The pipes took several turns around his body before they headed toward the sky. When he blew into his horn, puckering his lips, it made a sound never heard before, different from any of the instruments in the brass band in town. And it was loud. Not loud enough for our mother to hear, because she couldn’t hear anything, she was deaf. Marcel spotted our mother and was surprised. She never came down to the meadow. It was wet, and the hem of her dress could get muddy. She had been looking for Marcel. She squinted, and the sun glinted off her eyes. She couldn’t hear Marcel’s new horn. But she could see Marcel playing it, an instrument of his own invention. She could see his cheeks puffed out and his face turning red. He had already decided; he would only play his own compositions, written in a musical notation that he had devised, and that only he could read.

Marcel Duchamp and the Transhuman

Reducing the degree of automaticity that is in operation as oneself requires the adopting of an anti-expressive stance. Watching our friend M. D. liberate himself to some degree from automaticity without ever actually escaping it, we realized once and then again what each of us had somehow known from early on: artists are free only within a limited set of parameters, and life, in the form it has constructed itself into in our era, will enslave even the most self-critical of artists. Managing to position objects to hold their own in relation
to that which ubiquitously happens along and even to redirect it, using very-adjusted and less-adjusted ready-made insertions into symbolizing power, an inchoate emanating-out ready-made in its own right, to convey and express enough and more than enough, M. D. changed the history of expression (read symbolizing) and redefined (artistic) purpose — two remarkable achievements. But it must be acknowledged that even critically sublime insertions meant to subdue expressivity and thus renegotiate the automaticity that rules our world will before long — for even a critical artist winds up expressing something within a context of expression, within an artworld — turn sentimental — all that which has cinematically blossomed forth will be in hardly any time at all found to have about it the cloying quality of an antique endless loop of seduction. Having conceived of infra-thin, a Western version of the concept of kehai, a colonized and colonizing air that would self-perpetuate, a hope-filled venturing toward a prolongation of that which is of interest, M. D. enters history as a precursor artist to the transhuman. As for our relation to the transhuman: Only after we had, in our decades-long research project, "The Mechanism of Meaning," stared down automaticity
(so as to open it up for reconfiguration) by diving right into symbolizing power (so as to note and provide on-the-spot elicitings of its component factors, leading tendencies, and modes of operation), did we come to see
that, to escape human bondage (We have decided not to die!), we would have to transform ourselves into artist-architects, on-the-loose interdisciplinary creatures we sometimes refer to as coordinologists. We lie to say that
M.D. asked us to build one of our transhuman houses for him, one whose design he wished to join in on. If death were really always only for others then you would find Duchamp today moving about within a tactically posed surround of his and our combined making.

Arakawa

Madeline Gins

El Límite Soñado: Arquitecturas De Vidrio No Construidas, Reflexiones Desde El Siglo XXI: Las Vanguardias Artísticas

Valores semánticos del vidrio.

1.1 Sobre Duchamp: La circularidad de la mirada.
1.2 El rden de la materia: A propósito de Robert Smithson.
1.3 La rtrofia del límite en Dan Graham.

Valores semánticos del vidrio

La aparición del vidrio en el panorama de la producción arquitectónica se sumó a la introducción en los procesos constructivos de una serie de materiales cuya característica fundamental fue su carácter artificial: junto al hormigón armado y al acero, se inauguró una nueva tradición constructiva.

click to enlarge

Figure 1
The projection of
a painting on the glass window

Inicialmente vinculado a las estructuras de acero en construcciones destinadas a terminales de ferrocarril, a invernaderos, como los de Paxton y Burton, o a exposiciones temporales para los pabellones de las Exposiciones Universales⁽¹⁾, como el Palacio de Cristal londinense de Joseph Paxton, las deslumbrantes posibilidades del vidrio se extendieron más allá de sus implicaciones técnicas. (Fig. 1)

La especificidad del vidrio como materia que afecta la habitación del espacio, supuso la alteración de algunos conceptos tradicionales para la arquitectura. Quizá el más significativo fuese la alteración de la idea de levedad en cuanto trasgresión de lo sólido: mientras los planteamientos arquitectónicos estuvieron asociados al muro pétreo, la ausencia de materia incitó a convocar la gravedad. Eran criterios de sustracción en el muro: horadar, abrir. Bien hacia la luz, bien hacia la visión: El óculo del Panteon, o el salón de Comares en la Alhambra.

El vidrio incorpora como actuación la de acotar, limitar. En este caso, la levedad se presenta como cualidad intrínseca de la materia, sin que en ella actúe la presencia de elementos anteriores. De algún modo se produce una densificación cualitativa del espacio.

El vidrio simbolizó de este modo una expectación antropológica⁽²⁾, que los arquitectos tomaron como estigma de la incipiente modernidad⁽³⁾. Produjo una serie de reflexiones sobre su capacidad de limitar y expandir el espacio interior. En la proyección espacial, el vidrio sólo es límite bajo ciertas circunstancias, porque puede significar al tiempo confín y umbral. Supone la materialización de la línea en tránsito hacia lo otro, y a la vez la disolución del borde.

La pérdida del marco de la ventana y por tanto del carácter objetual de la perforación destinada a relacionar el edificio con su entorno, significó en primera instancia una ampliación del límite arquitectónico, incorporando, en segunda instancia, una nueva noción de materia: La superficie vitrificada habla de continuidad visual, pero también de una contradicción interna entre el orden de la malla cristalina y la planeidad de la membrana, lo que provoca una intensa densidad conceptual. El aparente orden externo o final que expresa la delgadez transparente del vidrio no es tal, sino una expresión ideal de su capacidad entrópica ⁽⁴⁾.

Sea como fuere, la fascinación que este material ejerce sobre el hombre afecta a una cuestión de base: la naturaleza misma de la visión. La arquitectura que nos envuelve, desde el Quatroccento, ha sido una arquitectura vinculada por completo a la visión; al proceso de visualización que parte del hombre hacia el entorno. El desarrollo de planos de vidrio verticales entre los planos horizontales de la base y la cubierta, y la consiguiente reducción de la opacidad de estos paramentos a casi cero, fueron intentos de llegar a la absoluta transparencia del muro, superponiendo a la práctica constructiva una cierta voluntad ontológica⁽⁵⁾. Este proceso de asociación repercute directamente en el hecho constructivo y, lo que es más, en la definición de un modo de conocimiento específico: Ver es conocer⁽⁶⁾.

La sincronía de la percepción que permitió desarrollar el vidrio implicó la modificación de la visualización del entorno, por cuanto se amplía la multiplicación de puntos de vista o, incluso, se propicia la ausencia de objeto perspectivo. La imagen más simple es ya una estructura que se incorpora al entendimiento personal del entorno, transformada sucesivamente tras un horizonte que es el límite de nuestra capacidad personal de percepción⁽⁷⁾.. El límite de vidrio significa para el espacio arquitectónico un lugar geométrico que engloba en su unidad una multiplicidad perceptible. El lugar, de este modo, deviene una creación de la propia producción espacial.

La reversibilidad del vidrio en procesos de transparencia y reflexión apoya estos aspectos, favoreciendo el desarrollo de una verdad plural, de la que se desprende una superposición de estratos convergentes: una constante desintegración del límite y una permanente activación del concepto de lugar. Realidad y verdad dejan de ser idénticas, anunciando una totalidad potencial, múltiple. La mirada se involucra en la transformación de la consciencia del individuo.

Esta mirada detenida en el vidrio, cuando se abre a lo visible, propicia el instante. Fugitivamente, concibe lo uno inasible y lo duradero: La superposición de tiempo, el detenimiento y avance de la mirada, termina por convocar una dimensión casi ascética del vidrio. Entre las resonancias de la arquitectura, queda una cierta identificación entre la materia y la mente⁽⁸⁾.

El espacio de este modo imaginado es un espacio viviente, es el lugar de un continuo nacer, de todas las posibilidades y diferencias, matriz fecunda de signos, ritmos y formas. No es casualidad, pues, que el vidrio haya planteado diferentes cuestiones en torno a su capacidad expresiva y a su resonancia en el hombre.

1.1 Sobre Duchamp: La circularidad de la mirada.

click to enlarge

Figure 2
Marcel Duchamp, Nude
Descending a Staircase,
no. 2, 1912

El esfuerzo por reflejar el espacio como superposición de estratos independientes queactúan entre sí converge en la necesidad de registrar la huella transparente de todos los estratos: Cuando Marcel Duchamp comienza pintando su Hombre descendiendo por una escalera⁽⁹⁾, (Fig. 2) indica claramente que el concepto de este hombre descendiendo no es sino una frágil sumatoria de instantes ficticios. Una seriación de ritmos que finalmente constituyen un obstáculo al entendimiento de esta situación como continuidad espacial, ya que esta multiplicación estática de ritmos lo que hace es disolver las expectativas de la idea central de movimiento efímero. Se trataba de captar, no un precipitado de tiempo puro, sino el tiempo mismo.

Esta pintura, en su desarrollo espacial, incorpora el tiempo (y por tanto el movimiento) como elemento definitivo de entendimiento del objeto. Aún no es un planteamiento técnico, despojado de atributos expresivos, como ocurrirá con Broyeuse de chocolat N°2, de 1914, (Fig. 3) en donde se observa un desmedido interés por la precisión, por la exactitud. Una exactitud manipulada, en donde el objeto es una caja de resonancias enfrentado al observador. El salto entre una y otra obra resulta fundamental para comprender el origen conceptual de la obra duchampiana por excelencia: el Gran Vidrio⁽¹⁰⁾, (Fig. 4) ya que implica el paso de una visión retiniana, destinada a la expresión, a una visión intelectual destinada al entendimiento. Ya no se pretende representar la realidad, sino dotar a la realidad de presencia a través de la obra. Esta voluntad de evitar una contemplación estética delGran Vidrio impulsó a Duchamp a presentar la Boîte Verte⁽¹¹⁾ (Fig. 5) en 1934, un conjunto de escritos, cálculos y reflexiones que debían ser consultados al tiempo que se observaba elGrand Verre, de modo que cualquier tipo de asociación con la pintura tradicional quedara descartado.

La necesidad de un nuevo soporte plástico que permitiera estas lecturas, implicó al vidrio como posible soporte alternativo al lienzo, carente de posibilidades de relación más allá de las puramente visuales. Además, el vidrio como materia significa, hablando en términos pictóricos, ausencia. De esta manera, las cualidades expresivas del vidrio, fundamentalmente su transparencia⁽¹²⁾, repercuten en la instalación, tanto por sus abiertas posibilidades de significación como por su capacidad de relación con el entorno. En el desarrollo de la obra se produce una vinculación del entorno al objeto y viceversa: una superposición de elementos significantes al espacio que las sostiene. Abandonado el proceso de desarrollo espacial cubista, en que la fragmentación y desplazamiento del objeto produce un espacio que genera la obra plástica, Duchamp extrae ese espacio del lienzo y genera un objeto capaz de activar el espacio que sustenta. Se establece de este modo un diálogo entre las ideas suspendidas en esta nueva tela vitrificada y las del observador que se acerca, gira, encontrando su posición en un espacio compartido por primera vez con la obra, alimento del proceso de reconocimiento en el lugar.

En los primeros estudios para el Gran Vidrio, como Neuf Moules Mâlic (Fig.6) y Glissiére contenant un moulin á eau en métaux voisins⁽¹³⁾(Fig. 7), Duchamp descubre estas posibilidades de ambigua significación del vidrio, fotografiando en diferentes ocasiones estos pequeños esbozos sobre vidrio en distintos espacios, colocándose delante o detrás de ellos. De este modo la obra no es ese objeto de museo, sino el objeto-con-él-en el espacio. Una propuesta que desplaza todo el interés del objeto representado hasta la superficie que funda el objeto. Ya no se trata de ver sin más, sino de ver a través-de, o, en el caso de la encriptación del Gran Vidrio, no ver a través-de lo transparente. Fundamentalmente, la idea de concentrar toda la capacidad de relación al límite, a la superficie de relación entre dos caras, actualiza los intereses espaciales que paralelamente se desarrollan en el espacio arquitectónico propuesto por el Movimiento Moderno. Confirmar mediante una delgada frontera la posibilidad dual del espacio. Si bien la posición de Duchamp se antoja aún más conflictiva, por cuanto se instala en el lugar, negándolo por el carácter positivo de su presencia, mientras que, por sus cualidades de relación, lo afirma, potenciando las capacidades de un espacio al que activa después de haberse impuesto sobre él.

Figure 3
Marcel Duchamp, Chocolate
Grinder number 2, 1914
Figure 4
MarcelDuchamp, The
Large Glass, 1915-23
Figure 5
Marcel Duchamp, The
Bride Stripped Bare by Her
Bachelors Eeven [a.k.a.
The Green Box], 1934

Figure 6
Marcel Duchamp, Nine
Malic Moulds, 1914-15
Figure 7
Marcel Duchamp, Glider
Containing a Water Mill made
of Neighboring Metals,
1913-15

Se produce, por tanto, una superposición de posibilidades sobre la superficie, una suerte de espacio acumulado, proyectado sobre una mínima transparencia: la máxima capacidad de significación se confía al mismo límite que apetece disolver. En este punto resulta altamente significativo el concepto de inframince⁽¹⁴⁾ con el que Duchamp califica la máxima capacidad de emoción. Lo “infradelgado” supone de este modo el foco de atención, el punto de mira de las disposiciones espaciales. Un nexo definitivo con las posteriores concepciones de la arquitectura, que desplaza las bondades del espacio hasta su máxima envolvente: una piel cristalizada que resuelve al mismo tiempo el carácter del espacio interior y las maclas exteriores del edificio.

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Figure 8
16^th century
perspectives by Durer

La proyección de diferentes estratos significativos en un mismo nivel, implica al Gran Vidrio en la suspensión crítica de la perspectiva. Los trabajos de Duchamp en la biblioteca de Sainte Geneviéve en París le permitieron estudiar distintos tratados perspectivos, de los que extraería buen número de notas. Surgen aquí relaciones explícitas del vidrio con los sistemas perspectivos del siglo XVI, como las demostraciones de Durero (Fig. 8), que abrieron a Duchamp nuevos caminos para el desarrollo espacial del conjunto⁽¹⁵⁾. La posibilidad de alterar el concepto tradicional de representación espacial le llevó a concebir el Gran Vidrio como una proyección espacial dentro del mismo espacio, es decir, no indiferente a él como un cuadro, sino dependiente de él. Al hacer desaparecer el soporte, los objetos quedan involucrados en una suerte de idealización espacial, no obstante el marco, y su señalada línea de división, que actúan con la indescriptible fuerza del marco de una ventana extraída del muro, descontextualizado su papel de articulación, y sin embargo con la capacidad de enfatizar la idea de tránsito, de límite, de espacio significante.

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Figure 9
Photo of the Large Glass
taken in Katherine Dreier’s
home at West Redding,
Connecticut, summer 1936

Un espacio que ofrece al vidrio como vuelta hacia el observador: al suspender los valores retinianos y por tanto el placer estético de la contemplación, señala un doble camino de extrañamiento del objeto y afirmación del espacio, con lo que finalmente se vuelve al hombre cuestionando el acto de mirar⁽¹⁶⁾. La multiplicidad de lecturas acumuladas, así como la proyección sobre la obra de diferentes visiones del entorno, variaciones de luz, reflejos fragmentados, suponen una ampliación del proceso de conocimiento. (Fig. 9) Una activación por tanto de la mirada que ha traspasado su nacimiento como visión para alcanzar su madurez como reconocimiento. El hombre se ve mirar, y de este modo, el encuentro con el vidrio deviene consigo mismo, con su espacio y su voluntad de conocer, provocando la circularidad de la mirada.

Notes

1. Las posibilidades de ampliar el uso del vidrio a otros tipos edificatorios fueron muy escasas, al menos en sus inicios en Inglaterra, hasta que se suprimió el impuesto sobre el consumo de este material en 1845. La Palm House de R.Turner y D.Burton (1845-1848), fue uno de los primeros edificios en beneficiarse de la disponibilidad de vidrios laminados.

Italo Calvino habla en su libro Seis Propuestas para el Próximo Milenio, del nexo entre levitación deseada y privación padecida como una constante antropológica en la que, la búsqueda constante de la levedad y sus expresiones significaron una reacción al peso de vivir. ( Italo Calvino: Seis Propuestas para el Próximo Milenio. Libros del Tiempo. Madrid: Editorial Siruela, 1989. p 39).

3. El vidrio lo hizo. El vidrio solo, sin ayuda alguna nuestra, habría destrozado la arquitectura clásica. El cristal tiene ahora una visibilidad perfecta, delgadas láminas de aire cristalizado para mantener el aire entre el interior y el exterior…El vidrio es incuestionablemente moderno.” Frank Lloyd Wright.1940. ( Frank Lloyd Wright: Modern Architecture, being the Kahn lectures. Collected writings, vol 2. New York: Rizzoli Publications, 1992. pp 38-39).

4. “…dentro de el cristal existen combinaciones constantes donde la materia vítrea es manipulada para formar nuevas estructuras. La energía que el cristal utiliza para producir delgadas láminas implica que las estructuras preexistentes se han abolido…en las disciplinas científicas, a este proceso se le llama entropía. A pesar de sus movimientos internos, el vidrio mantiene un sistema al que se encuentra subordinado..”Robert Smithson.1968 ( Robert Smithson: A sedimentation of the mind:Earth Projects. Retrospective works 1955-1973. Oslo: The National Museum Of Contemporary Art, 1999. p 85).

5. “…el vidrio consagra la visibilidad, invitando a la experiencia de una verdad objetiva.”
Dan Graham. 1976. ( Dan Graham: My Position. Villeurbanne: Nouveau Musée/Presses du Réel, 1992. p 15).

6. “El ojo como órgano de la vista es parte de la actividad total del alma; mira, pero su intención profunda, su finalidad, es “ver” lo que no se puede ver con la mirada. Mirar debe convertirse en contemplar para poder llegar a “la visión” que es conocimiento..La visión es un estado de la conciencia, un estado extremo de la atención, la cual –como en una atenta escucha- ve lo que ya sabía el cuerpo profundo.”
Pablo Palazuelo.1995.
( Pablo Palazuelo: La Visión y el Tiempo. Museo Nacional Reina Sofía. Madrid, 1995. pp 17-19).

7. “Dichosamente porque es ya una casa, imagen del firmamento y del hueco que le separa de la tierra. En ella, en la tienda o choza, primera morada fabricada por el hombre, el horizonte es confín, círculo que limita y abriga, es como un horizonte propio de su habitante…”
María Zambrano. 1977.(María Zambrano: Claros del bosque. Ed Seix Barral. Barcelona, 1993. pp 63-64).

8. “La energía inteligente se compenetra con la energía material. La capa más profunda de nuestra mente “es naturaleza”, la naturaleza que contiene la materia y lo desconocido.” Pablo Palazuelo. 1985 ( Geometría y Visión: Una conversación con Kevin Power. Diputación Provincial de Granada. Granada, 1995. p 35).

9. Nu descendant un escalier.N°2. Enero 1912 (Neully).
“Mi objetivo apuntaba a la representación estática del movimiento –una composición estática de indicaciones estáticas de las diversas posiciones adoptadas por una forma en movimiento- prescindiendodel intento de crear efectos cinemáticos mediante la pintura.”
Marcel Duchamp. 1945. ( J.Johnson Sweeney: Interview. The Museum of Modern Art Bulletin, vol. 13. New York, 1945. pp 4-5).

10. La marie mise á nu par ses célibataires, même (LE GRAND VERRE). 1915-1923 (New York). “ Óleo, barniz, hoja de plomo, hilo de plomo y polvo sobre dos placas de vidrio (quebradas), cada una montada entre dos paneles de vidrio, con cinco hilillos de vidrio, hoja de aluminio; marco de madera y acero. Especie de subtítulo: Retraso en vidrio.
Emplear retraso en lugar de cuadro o pintura; cuadro sobre vidrio se convierte en retraso en vidrio -pero retraso en vidrio no quiere decir cuadro sobre vidrio. Es simplemente una manera de llegar a dejar de considerar que la cosa en cuestión es un cuadro- hacer un retraso en todo lo general posible y no tanto en los distintos sentidos en que puede tomarse retraso, sino más bien en su reunión indecisa. Retraso –un retraso en vidrio- como diría un poema en prosa o una escupidera de plata.”
Marcel Duchamp. 1923. ( Duchamp du Signe. Ed. Flammarion. París, 1978. p.37).Al margen de las profundas explicaciones que merece la imaginería del Gran Vidrio, el tema fundamental de la obra resulta de la relación entre la pieza superior, “la novia” (símbolo de la fecundidad y la creación) y la pieza inferior, “los solteros” (símbolo de la esterilidad y el vacío), formando la dualidad de la génesis del mundo abstracto.

11. La marie mise á nu par ses célibataires, même (BOÎTE VERTE). 1934 (París). “ …Quería que este álbum acompañase al Verre, y que pudiese ser consultado para ver el Verre, porque, en mi opinión, el Verre no tenía que mirarse en el sentido estético de la palabra. Había que consultar el libro y verlo conjuntamente. La conjunción de ambas cosas le quitaba todo aquel aspecto retiniano que no me gusta nada. Era muy lógico.”
Marcel Duchamp. 1934.
( Marcel Duchamp y Pierre Cabanne: Ingénieur du temps perdu: entretiens avec Pierre Cabanne. Pierre Belfond. París,1977. p.7 ).

12. son cosas técnicas. El vidrio me interesaba mucho como soporte, a causa de su transparencia. Eso ya era una gran cosa. Por otra parte, el color, que puesto sobre el vidrio es visible desde el otro lado y si se encierra pierde toda posibilidad de oxidarse…”
Marcel Duchamp. 1934.( Marcel Duchamp y Pierre Cabanne: Ingénieur du temps perdu: entretiens avec Pierre Cabanne. Pierre Belfond. París,1977. p.64).

13. Neuf Moules Mâlic. 1914-15 (París).Oleo, hilo de plomo, hoja de plomo sobre vidrio (quebrado en 1916), montado entre dos placas de vidrio, 66 x 101,2 cm.Glissiére contenant un moulin á eau en métaux voisins. 1913-15 (París).Óleo y vidrio semicircular, plomo, hilo de plomo, 147 x 79 cm.

14. En la revisión de la obra de Duchamp para la exposición de Tokio de 1980, aparecieron nuevos manuscritos y notas inéditas, entre las que fue frecuente encontrar la palabra inframince, (Fig. 10) palabra inexistente en francés, compuesta en uno de los muchos juegos verbales del arte conceptual por Infra- (bajo) y –mince (delgado). La absoluta conexión entre lenguaje y expresión plástica arroja luz sobre este punto, encontrando, entre otras citas: “…la pintura sobre vidrio, vista desde el lado sin pintar, da un infradelgado. El intercambio entre lo que uno pone a la vista y la mirada glacial del público (que ve y se olvida inmediatamente). A menudo este intercambio tiene el valor de una separación infradelgada…”. Yoshiaki Tono, responsable de la organización de esta exposición, ilustró este término con diferentes fotografías de la superficie del agua, continua, dual, sin grosor alguno. (Fig. 11)

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Figure 10
Marcel Duchamp, Note
on the inframince

Figure 11
Photograph of the
surface of water

15. Las referencias a los tratados perspectivos de esta biblioteca son importantes, especialmente al Manual del pintor de Durero, de 1538, y a La Perspectiva Práctica de Du Breuil, de 1642, existiendo, además, una similitud significativa entre los dibujos con dos planos superpuestos de este último tratado y la disposición final del Gran Vidrio. Entre las notas omitidas en La Caja Verde, destacan la publicada en A l’Infinitif, en 1964: “use transparent glass and mirror for perspective…[…] paint the definitive picture “sur glace sans tain”(two-way mirror thick)…” Marcel Duchamp.1913. (Dawn Ades, Neil Cox, David Hopkins: Marcel Duchamp. Ed Thames and Hudson. Londres, 1999. pp 111-112).

16. “se olvida ante todo que el hombre, sin más, es contemplativo aunque sólo sea en la modesta medida en que mira y recibe algo de esa incompleta, más cierta, visión que su breve mirada le procura. Contemplativo en sentido preciso es solamente el dado a prolongar esa mirada…” María Zambrano. 1984. (Zambrano: De la Aurora. Ed Turner. Madrid, 1986. pp 39-40).

Duchamp the Gardener

Two years ago I went to a garden design festival on the river Loire, in France.40 or so gardens had been built, all selected for innovation of ideas, material or execution. The festival is held in the grounds of a castle overlooking the river Loire. The theme of the show that year was “Erotomania”.

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Figure 2
Céline Orsingher et Laurent Bailly, Erotomania-Erotomachia, 2002

Nestling amongst the fibreglass breasts, suspended underwear and other (small) feats of the designers’ imagination was a garden enclosed by a corrugated iron wall. The only view of the garden was afforded by the occasional peep hole. Within the walls was a scene of urban decay : weeds grew high, plastic mannequins in various states of undress lay, erotically I suppose, in the overgrown vegetation. Experiencing the garden via the peephole made the experience short, private and intense. The title of the garden was Erotomanie Erotomachie. (Fig.
1) Had the idea been Given by Duchamp? (Fig.
2) I asked its architects but received no reply.

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Figure 2
Figure 3

Marcel Duchamp, Given: 1.
The Waterfall; 2. The Illuminating Gas, 1946-66

There are other links to be made between Duchamp and gardening…and Duchamp and landscape, I’m here today to argue the case for Duchamp the gardener and would love to hear the counter argument. I’ll make them none the less.

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Marcel Duchamp, The Bride
Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors,
Even, 1915-23

Let us take a famous work: Fountain. I won’t labour this point but the simple fact is this man’s fame rests on a water feature. Duchamps horticultural aspirations can hardly be made more obvious…and the Large Glass…glass and horticulture go hand in hand, in fact the Palm House at Kew gardens is discussed by one contributor to Tout fait. Glass is a complicated, conceptual, challenging material that both allows us grow tropical plants in boreal places, as well as transmit cryptic artistic messages. Duchamp chose the latter way of using it…but could have fairly chosen the former.

What stronger argument than these? If I must go on I will. Duchamp’s liberation of Washington Square (attempted) was not, I would argue, the drunken detail in Duchamp’s life has (regrettably) been bypassed by Duchampians. It shows a clear commitment to the municipal landscape…possibly with aspirations to community gardening. Duchamp was a great fan of New York City and was it would not surprise me at all if he had been planning a post secession community (organic) wildflower meadow for the children of New York. Serious.

Not convinced? I’ll continue. Rrose Sélavy? Quoi plus dire? Duchamp was of the field in name…of the flower in pseudonym. He didn’t only think about flowers but also about watering them, and selected this as a identifying himself. A practical man as well as an aesthete…a landscaper. What better qualification for my thesis?

Duchamp was once described as being in an anti-nature phase, and defiantly turning his back on a Forsythia bush (who wouldn’t). He doesn’t fool me. The line between love and hate is a thin one.

I could go on, there is a gardener in all of us. Duchamp was no exception. The big question is why did he hide it from the world? It was nothing to be ashamed of. Answers please.

Observations on Duchamp’s Color

Recent Investigations on the relative permanence of chromatic memory retention by Prof. Karl Gegenfurtner of Giessen University in Germany may throw light on Duchamp’s very conservative use of color in his mature work.

In summary account, The visual memory better and longer stores images in ‘natural color’ than either in black & white or bright, primary tints. The work in Germany was placed in an evolutionary context:“If stimuli are too strange, the system simply doesn’t engage as well, or deems them unimportant” (see: Franz, V.H., Fahle, M., Bülthoff, H.H. & Gegenfurtner, K.R. “The effect of visual illusions on grasping.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, vol. 27, nr. 5 (October 2001), pp. 1124-1144).

Primary in Duchamp’s concern must have been a realization that his complex and inference rich constructions might not linger long enough in memory to permit recall at prolonged leisure and reflection. Anticipating much later research, he deliberately avoided the use of any means which could possibly hinder the visual memory’s work. Thus a characteristic natural effect was sought in his color schemes.

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Figure 1
Marcel Duchamp,Given:1
The Waterfall / 2. The
Illuminating Gas, 1946-1966

In the final work, Given: The Water Fall, 2. The illuminating Gas, (Fig. 1) Duchamp went out of his way to obtain colorations of light, landscape and flesh, that caused some critics to questions such an apparent reversion of a revolutionary artist to mere ‘naturalism’ as practiced by the 19^th century realists. The explanation may lie in another direction entirely. The writer believes Duchamp intuitively was aware of the phenomenon described by the German researcher and employed it cunningly in a major and little understood work.

(Timothy Phillips)

Mirror, Mirror: The Strange Case of the Salon de Fleurus

Marcel Duchamp, beholding the flowering of the New York art scene, once said that “the great artist of tomorrow will go underground.” In at least one case, that prediction has proved truer than even the grand old trickster may have imagined.

The Salon de Fleurus (Fig. 1 & 2), an art space inconspicuously situated in a rear building on Spring Street in downtown Manhattan, is just about as far underground one can go before hitting bedrock. Its two ornately furnished rooms are crowded with paintings that closely resemble famous works by Picasso, Matisse and Cezanne–except that they have been painted anonymously (Fig. 3 & 4). The familiar images bear no signatures, and in the 10 years of the salon’s existence, no one has stepped forward to claim authorship. There is no advertising to peruse or forfend, not a whit of ambition hanging in the air. An affable, insightful gentleman is on hand to explain the environment to visitors, but his involvement, by his own admission, amounts to no more than that of “a doorman.” To all outward appearances, the Salon de Fleurus is a place without provenance.

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Figure 1
Figure 2

Salon de Fleurus
Salon de Fleurus

Figure 3
Figure 4

Painting at Salon
de Fleurus
Painting at Salon
de Fleurus

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Figure 5
Mike Bidlo, The
Fountain Drawings, 1998

“To all outward appearances” being the key phrase. In recent years, various artists have gone down the art-copying trail, notably Sherrie Levine and Mike Bidlo (Fig. 5). Casting further backward, one hits upon the venerable tradition of apprentices copying their masters. The complete removal of authorship from copied works, however, is another story. All his life, Duchamp flirted with the appearance of quitting art “in the professional sense.” Here, someone has done so in earnest.

The immediate effect is clear enough. Typically, the process of integrating art into the world begins with an advance broadcast of the artist’s personality, often a single memorable word (“insane,” “British,” “doctor,” etc.), which serves as a seed for all that follows. At the salon, this strategy of reductionism has reached its apogee: the viewer no longer knows whom to turn to for the expected explanation. Like the spherical caves in E.M. Forster’s A Passage To India, the Salon de Fleurus is perfectly self-contained, canceling out every echo with an opposing one, until one is essentially left with one’s own thoughts.

But why, and to what end? Ten years after the day I first sat in the salon and breathed the pungent scent of mothballs, I am in no better position than the average observer to answer this question. I still bring my own ideas to the space, pitting my forensic powers against hints and clues, with no hope of confirmation or denial. What follows are some of the thoughts I’ve accrued in the presence of this artistic sphinx.

First and foremost, it is not really correct to speak of the Salon de Fleurus as an art space. This may explain why so few have tried. It has been described as a curiosity, a recreation of Gertrude Stein’s storied salon, a sardonic comment on Modernism, a masterful reflection of the same, and more.

But whatever the analysis, it has mobilized no great hope for the rebirth of Cubism–and understandably so. The salon may be about art spaces, but that is not the same thing as being one.

In the strictest sense, we cannot even call the individual paintings art, just as we cannot know if prehistoric cave painters would have consented to today’s definition of the term. Indeed, the only time any objects from the salon have only been classified as such is when they have appeared outside their original context, as in their recent inclusion in the Whitney Biennial.

An Australian aborigine, seeing his dreamings in a plush uptown gallery, would certainly appreciate the paradox.

We have entered the realm of archeology, then, but of archeology of what? Having opened a fault line between image and word, the salon seems to demand a re-examination of art criticism, which has become increasingly reliant on personality to find its way. Perhaps, in referring to the most iconic of Modernist painters, it seeks more specifically to disassemble the story of Modernism, which has been selling so many T-shirts of late.

Of course, Picasso, Matisse, and Cezanne have been interpreted in such widely varying ways by now that the spectrum would seem to include all possible responses to anything. In this sense, the salon has benefited from its longevity. The varied attempts to explain its contents–as a hoax, as an experiment, as a subversive act–mirror the whole range of interpretations of 20th-century art. With each unconfirmed reading, the next prospect is trotted out, until the final exhaustion of Modernism is replayed.

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Figure 6
Painting at Salon
de Fleurus

That, perhaps, is a conclusion worth living with: where Duchamp introduced familiar objects as works of art (albeit in a magisterial act of misdirection), the Salon de Fleurus manages to cast familiar art works back to the unknown (Fig. 6). The structure of what we see is, if not shattered or exploded, at least rendered expertly tenuous, like a house with all of its nails removed.

At this stage in the game, it is worth asking whether such an intriguing project can ever bear offspring. Or rather, if it has, how would anyone know? With no one on hand to confirm or deny, anyone can lay claim to the salon as an influence–provided, among the infinite interpretations, he can discover what constitutes lineage. A space is open, waiting to be recognized and claimed, Should that come to pass, we can look forward to a growing body of work that is not only brilliant in its implications, but expansive as well.

The Suggestion of a Boundary: the Non-constructed Architecture of Glass

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Figure 1
The projection of
a painting on the
glass window

The use of glass in architecture was associated with the use of other artificial materials, such as steel and reinforced concrete. These materials heralded new trends in architecture. Glass was initially incorporated into steel structures destined for railway 0terminals and glasshouses; Paxton and Burton come to mind. Pavilions for national exhibitions⁽¹⁾ like Paxton’s Crystal Palace were also beneficiaries of this new architectural technology. Possibilities for the use of glass were dazzling and transcended the mere technical. (Fig. 1)

Use of glass and the subsequent effect on the space that it enclosed challenged traditional architectural concepts. The most significant change was brought about by the introduction of levity–or the transgression of solidity. Traditionally the stone wall had dictated how architecture was approached and, curiously perhaps, an absence of material introduced the idea of gravity into architecture. A wall brings with it the concept of subtraction for it must be pierced or opened up in some way to allow the entry of light. The oculus of the Pantheon or Salon de Comares in the Alhambra palace are here brought to mind. Glass, for its part, demarcates and encloses. Levity is an intrinsic and unencumbered quality of this material and for whatever reason glass qualitatively increases the density of a space.

Glass came to symbolize anthropological expectations⁽²⁾ which architects interpreted as a way of stigmatizing incipient modernity⁽³⁾ . This material triggered a series of reflections regarding its capacity to limit and expand interior space. As far as spatial projection is concerned, use of glass alone is limited as it, in time come to present boundaries and thresholds. It supposes both lines moving towards others, and the disappearance of edges.

The departure of the window as marker, and loss of the objectifying effect of the perforation which can serve to locate a building in its surroundings broadened architectural horizons and brought about new notions of material: not only can visual continuity can be obtained via the glass surface, but also an infernal conflict between the order of the crystal mesh and the flatness of the membrane. This conflict engenders intense conceptual density. The apparent external order or finality implicit in transparent thinness is not so. What we are experiencing here is, in fact, the ideal expression of entropy.⁽⁴⁾

This being so the fascination exerted on man by this material poses a fundamental question: The very natural nature of the architecture that we have been loyal to since the 400s has been architecture linked to seeing, and to the process by which we see. The development of vertical panes of glass between horizontal ones from floor to ceiling meant an opacity of almost zero. The resulting virtually complete transparency of the wall introduced a kind of ontologous motive to the process of construction⁽⁵⁾ . This process of association had a direct effect on the construction process and, more importantly it defined a specific way of knowing: Knowing through seeing⁽⁶⁾.

This tuning ofperception that enabled glass to be exploited brought about a changein the way one perceived ones surroundings from within buildings as there was now a multiplication of viewing points. The objective perspective was removed. The simplest way of seeing glass incorporated architecture was as a structure that incorporates a personal understanding of the space that can be successively transformed across a horizon defined by a person’s ability to see things⁽⁷⁾ . Glass edges, in spatial architectural terms, signify a geometrical space that encloses perpetual multiplicity. The glass space becomes a spatial interpretation of one’s own.

This idea is backed up by the idea of the reversibility of glass through transparency and reflection. A plural reality or truth evolves, which implies the superposition of converging layers; a constant disintegration of the limits and a permanent propulsion of space. Reality and truth stop being the same implying that some kind of totality might be attained. Sight becomes linked to the transformation of consciousness. When one’s view is sequestered by glass, a glass that reveals the visible surroundings moment the moment is expanded. A lasting but fugitive unassailability is conceived: the superposition of time, the detainment and advance of sight ends up becoming an almost aesthetic dimension of the glass itself. Amongst the architectural resonances there is a kind of identification between mind and material⁽⁸⁾.

Space, when imagined in this way, is something that is alive. It is a place of continualbirth, of endless possibilities and differences, a fertile generator of signs, rhythms and forms. It is not by mere chance that glass has come to provoke so many questions, it is due to its expressive nature and ability to resonate for man.

Duchamp and the circularity of vision

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Figure 2
Marcel Duchamp,
Nude Descending a Staircase,
no. 2, 1912

The effort required to envisage space as the superposition of independent layers, each one interacting with one another lies in the identification of the invisiblemarker that runs through all the layers. When Marcel Duchamp painted Nude Descending a Staircase ⁽⁹⁾ (Fig. 2), of fictitious moments; a series of rhythms that will constitute a defiance of understanding of this situation as any kind of spatial continuity, since what this static collection of captured movements does is dissolve a central idea of an ephemeral moment. It does not capture a precipitation of pure time, but time itself.

This painting, in its spatial development, incorporates time and movement as a definitive element for understanding the object. Its approach is not at all technical; it is dispossessed of expressive techniques like those of Chocolate Grinder number 2 (1914) (Fig. 3) in which disproportionate attention is given to precision and exactitude. Jumping from one work to another is fundamental when trying to understand Duchampian conceptual origins: The Large Glass⁽¹⁰⁾ (Fig. 4) implied a movement from expressive retinal vision to intellectual vision, aimed at understanding. In this work Duchamp made no attempt to represent reality. He was trying to give some kind of presence to reality. This desire to stop the Large Glass being subjected to any kind of aesthetic provoked the appearance of the Green Box (11) in 1934 ⁽¹¹⁾ in 1934 (Fig. 5),, a series of writings, calculations and reflections to be consulted while observing the Large Glass. It would prevent the chance of any kind of association between traditional painting and this work. The need for plastic support to facilitate these readings implicated glass as being a replacement for the traditional canvas, lacking any interpretative possibilities–visual ones aside. In pictorial terms glass signified absence. The transparency of glass makes it a means of a certain type of expression related to its surroundings⁽¹²⁾. As the work develops the relationship between the work and the object is established, and vice versa. These links are sustained by the superposition of the significant elements. Having abandoned the spatial development of cubism, whereby fragmentation and development of the object make it plastic, Duchamp extracts that space from the canvas and generates an object capable of holding that space. In this way he establishes a dialogue between ideas suspended in his new glass membrane and those of the observer who approaches, goes round and situates himself in a space shared with the work. The work is nourished by this process of spatial recognition. In preliminary studies for the Large Glass, 9 Malic Moulds (Fig. 6),and the Glider containing a Water Mill made of Neighbouring metals⁽¹³⁾(Fig.7) and Duchamp discovered the possibilities of glass by photographing little sketches drawn on the glass in different spaces and positioning himself for these photographs either in front of or behind the glass. Now it was not a question of seeing less, rather seeing through or, in the case of the encrypted Large Glass, not seeing through the transparency. This fundamental idea of concentrating on the threshold, on the surface of the relation between two faces was concurrent with propositions by the so-called Modern Movement in architecture. Using a thin threshold the dual possibilities of space are suggested. Duchamp is even more challenging as he places the individual inside the space and somehow negates its existence through the affirmative presence the observer, as well as giving the space a relational potency that is activated one the individual is installed.

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Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5

Marcel Duchamp, Chocolate Grinder
number 2, 1914
Marcel Duchamp, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even [The Large Glass], 1915-23
Marcel Duchamp, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors Eeven [a.k.a. The Green Box], 1934

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Figure 6
Figure 7

Marcel Duchamp, Nine Malic
Moulds, 1914-15
Marcel Duchamp, Glider Containing
a Water Mill made of Neighboring
Metals, 1913-15

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Figure 8
16^the
century perspectives by Durer

Thus one possibilityis superposed upon another, a mass of accumulated space projected onto a minimum transparency: A huge amount of meaning is thus conferred upon an evanescent threshold. Here the idea of the infrathin ⁽¹⁴⁾ is highly significant, which Duchamp accorded the highest emotional significance. The notion of infrathin is one of focus, focus viewing spatial positions, a definitive nexus with later architectural concepts the qualities of the space to maximum involvement: a crystallized skin that simultaneously resolves the interior space and the exterior symmetries of the building. The projection of different, meaningful layers on one level means that the Large Glass presents a critically suspended perspective. Duchamp’s work as a librarian in St. Genevieve in Paris would allow him to study different treatments of perspective, about which he would make copious notes. Explicit links between the Large Glass and 16^th century perspectives would be established at this time, like those of Durer (Fig. 8) who would expose Duchamp to new pathways in the spatial development of the collection as a whole⁽¹⁵⁾. The possibility of changing the traditional concept of spatial representation lead him to conceive of the space as a spatial projection within the space itself, that is to say, not indifferent to it as in a painting, but dependant on it. Having been divested of any kind of gravitational support, objects become linked to a kind of idealized space. The marker nevertheless, and its clearly demarcated lines of division functions with the indescribable power of a decontextualized window (ie estranged from its wall). This marker, however, has the ability to emphasize the idea of transit, of thresholds and of significant space.

click to enlarge

Figure 9
Photo of the Large Glass
taken in Katherine Dreier’s
home at West Redding, Connecticut, summer 1936

Glass turns space towards the observer by suspending retinal values and the subsequent aesthetic enjoyment brought about by contemplating them, it distances the object and affirms the space, which results in the individual questioning the very act of seeing⁽¹⁶⁾. Multiple readings, as well as the projection onto the work of different visions of the surroundings, variations in light, fragmented reflections ultimately expand the process of cognition. (Fig.9) The development of the viewpoint passes from birth asa vision to maturity as knowledge. The individual sees himself looking.In this way, the encounter with the glass leads the observer back to his starting point, in which finally the work confronts the observer with himself, with his space and with his desire to know it. The circularity of the process is ensured.

Notes

1. The possibilities of expanding the use of glass to other types of buildings were very small, at least in the beginning in the UK. This was before the tax on the consumption of the material was stopped in 1845. The Palm House, by Richard Turner and Decimus Birton (1845 – 1848) was one of the first buildings to benefit from the availability of laminated window panes.

2. In his novel “Six Memos for the Next Millenium”, Italo Calvino speaks of the Nexus between desired levitation and deprivation suffered as an anthropological constant in which the constant search for levity and expressions of levity were a reaction against the weight of living. (Italo Calvino, Seis Propuestas para el Proximo Milenio. Libros del Tiempo (Madrid: Editorial Siruela, 1989) 39).

3. I used glass. Glass alone, without our help, might have destroyed classical architecture. Nowadays glass panes hold perfect visibility,thin sheets of air crystallized to hold air inside and outside Glass is unquestionably modern.
( Frank Lloyd Wright, Modern Architecture, being the Kahn lectures. Collected writings, vol 2 (New York: Rizzoli Publications, 1992) 38-39).

4. “…within the crystal there are constant combinations where the mass of the crystal is shifted to form new structures. The energy that the crystal uses to produce new structures implies that its old structures are broken down… in the natural sciences, this process is called entropy. In other words, the crystal is constantly moving because of breakdowns and structural developments, but outwardly it is maintained by a superordinate system.”
( Robert Smithson, A sedimentation of the mind: Earth Projects. Retrospective works 1955-1973 (Oslo: The National Museum Of Contemporary Art, 1999) 85).

5.”Invisible but blocking all sound, glass consecrates visibility, thus inviting an experience of objective truth.”
( Dan Graham, My Position (Villeurbanne: Nouveau Musée/Presses du Réel, 1992) 15).

6. “The eye as an organ for seeing things is part of the whole soul’s activity; an organ for looking yes, but the underlying purpose, the ultimate objective, is to see whet cannot be looked at. Looking must become contemplation which must become vision which is knowledge. Vision is a state of consciousness, an extreme atate of attentiveness, like listening, seeing what one knows deep down. Pablo Palazuelo. 1995.
(Translated from Spanish. Pablo Palazuelo, La Vision y el tiemo (Madrid: Museo Nacional Reina Sofia, 1995) 17 – 19)34

7. …Happily because it is already a house, image of firmness and hollowness that separates it from the earth. In it, in the hut or the shop, first dwelling built by man, the boundary forms the horizon that encircles, demarcates and shelters, it is the personal horizon of its inhabitant…1977
(María Zambrano, Claros del bosque (Barcelona: Ed Seix Barral, 1993) 63-64).

8.“Intelligent energy with material energy. The deepest srtratum of the mind is “nature”, nature which contains material and the unknown.
(Geometry and Vision: a conversation with Kevin Power (Canada: Diputacion Provincial de Granada, 1995) p 35).

9. Nude Descending a Staircase. No. 2, January 1912.

10. The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even [The Large Glass], 1915-23, New York.
“Employer “retard” au lieu de tableau ou peinture; tableau sur berre devient retard en verre–mais retard en verre ne veut pas dire tableau sur verre.–
C’est simplement un moyen d’arriver à ne plus considérer que la chose en question est un tableau–en faire un reatrd dans tout le général possible, pas tant dans les différents sens dans lesquels retard peut être pris, mais plutôt dans leur réunion indécise. “Retard”–un retard en verre, comme on dirait un poème en prose ou eun crachoir en argent.” [Use “delay” instead of “picture” or/”painting”; “picture on glass” becomes “delay in glass”–but “delay in glass” does not mean “picture on glass”–
It’s merely a way of succeeding in no longer thinking that the thing in question is a picture–to make a “delay” of it in the most general way possible, not so much in the different meanings in which “delay” can be taken, but rather in their indecisive reunion. “Dealy”–a “delay in glass” as you would say a “poem in prose” or a spittoon in silver.”
( Duchamp du Signe (Paris: Ed. Flammarion, 1975/1994) 41).

11.The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachlors, Even [The Green Box], 1934, Paris.
“I wanted that album to go with the “Glass,” and to be consulted when seeing the “Glass” because, as I see it, it must not be “looked at” in the aesthetic sense of the word. One must consult the book, and see the two together. The conjunction of the two things entirely removes the retinal aspect that I don’t like. It was very logical.”
(Pierre Cabanne, Dialogus with Marcel Duchamp, Ron Padgett, trans. (London: A Da Capo, 1979) 42.)

12. “I don’t know. These things are often technical. As a ground, the glass interested me a lot, because of its transparency. That was already a lot. Then, color, which, when put on glass, is visible from the other side, and loses its chance to oxidize if you enclose it…”
(Pierre Cabanne, Dialogus with Marcel Duchamp, Ron Padgett, trans. (London: A Da Capo, 1979) 38.)

13. Nine Malic moulds. 1914 – 1915 (Paris)

click to enlarge

Figure 10
Marcel Duchamp, Note
on the inframince

Figure 11
Photograph of the
surface of water

14.In Duchamp’s revisions for the Tokyo exhibition of 1980 new unedited notes and manuscripts appeared, in which the word inframince appeared, (Fig. 10) a word that doesn’t exist in French making one of the many plays on words in conceptual art. It is composed of the word infra (low) and mince (thin). The absolute connection between language and plastic expression throws light on this point, finding, amongst other quotes “…painting on glass, seen from this side without painting, creates the infrathin. The Interchange between what is put in view and the glacial observation of the public (that sees and immediately forgets). At least this exchange holds the value of an infrathin separation.”

Yoshiaki Tono, responsible for organizing this exhibition, illustrates this term with different photographs of the surface of water, continual, dual and with no thickness (Fig. 11)

15. References to the different approaches to perspective from this library are important, especially in Durero’s Painting Manual, 1538 and Du Breuil’spractical painting perspective, 1642. Furthermore there existed a significant similarity between sketches that show two superimposed planes of the latter approach and the final perspectival disposition of the Large Glass. Amongst the omotted notes from the Green Box the following stands out (published in A L’infinitif, 1964 “Use transparent glass and mirror for perspective [….] paint the definitive picture “sur glace sans tain (two way mirror thick)…Marcel Duchamp.1913.
(Dawn Ades, Neil Cox, David Hopkins, eds., Marcel Duchamp (London: Thames and Hudson, 1999) 111 – 112).

16. “….ng of that most certainly incomplete vision that his brief look will procure. Contemplative in the stricter sense of leeting himself prolong his regard”
(Zambrano, De la Aurora (Madrid: Ed Turner, 1986) 39-40).