The
danger is in pleasing an immediate public: the immediate public
that comes around you and takes you in and accepts you and gives
you success and everything. Instead of that, you should wait
for fifty years or a hundred years for your true public. That
is the only public that interests me.
Marcel
Duchamp
It
is the REGARDEURS who make the pictures.
Marcel
Duchamp
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Figure
1
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Jasper
Johns, The Critic Sees, 1961
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Our ability to believe
our eyes is often overridden by our unquestioning confidence in the
judgment of "experts". As in Jasper John's The Critic Sees (fig.
1), we seem to put more trust in the words of these experts whose
insights are often the reiteration of yet others' conclusions, than
in our own ability to bear down and witness what is before us. Marcel
Duchamp understood the human tendency to categorize and simplify as
well as rely on the filters of contemporary opinion to color observation;
I believe he used this knowledge to make a powerful commentary on the
state of affairs of modern thought and the direction that art was taking
in his lifetime. Duchamp fought quietly against the move in twentieth
century art towards the purely visual experience, the 'retinal shudder'
as he put it, where "aesthetic delectation depends almost exclusively
upon the sensitivity of the retina without any auxiliary interpretation."(1)
This auxiliary interpretation was to Duchamp the operation of the intellect
in making and understanding art. Duchamp rejected the Matissean and
later the related Greenbergian theoretical view that saw art in terms
of expression and taste rather than concept. As a result, Duchamp sought
to transform his art and its appreciation into an intellectual endeavor
that would restore it's ties "with society" by once again including
"the religious, philosophical and moral content that bonded the two
together."(2)
I believe it was this
multi-dimensional conceptual stance on art, investigations into the
wonder of human perception and a drive to subvert the art world's digestive
cycle, rather than a Dada prankster spirit, that may in part have motivated
Duchamp to design and handcraft his ready-mades and thereafter claim
them to be found objects as recent discoveries suggest. The litany of
contradictory statements regarding their provenance and the mysterious
loss or destruction of the original ready-mades denying any close inspection
stood as a challenge to his generation as it continues to be to ours
to look not just through the glasses of contemporary interpretation
but to have confidence in the complexity of our own mind's eye and what
it can discern. Calvin Tomkins quotes and paraphrases Duchamp from an
interview he gave to promote the Société Anonyme in 1920 as follows:
If Americans would simply remember their own "far famed...sense of humor
when they see our pictures," he added, and think for themselves instead
of listening to the critics, "modern art will come into its own."(3)
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Figure
2
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Marcel Ducahmp, Wanted: $2,000 Reward, 1922 © 2000
Succession Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris
|
In Wanted: $2000
Reward (fig. 2) Duchamp puts a price on this challenge and
offers not only monetary compensation but seemingly a clear set of clues
to any who wish to question accepted interpretations and jump beyond
retinal readings of this and his other works. Today we know through
the research primarily of Rhonda Roland Shearer and a growing number
of others that the ready-mades and rectified ready-mades such as L.H.O.O.Q.(4)
and Apollinaire
Enameled(5)
were not purely operations of choice by the artist but in fact highly
manipulated wholly original works.
Wanted: $2000
Reward of 1923 is traditionally classified as a rectified readymade
and "according to [Arturo] Schwarz this work, which is now lost, was
made from a joke poster Duchamp found in a New York restaurant. He attached
his own photographs within two blank rectangles and had the last line
of the lower text altered by a printer so that Rrose Selavy could be
included in the list of aliases."(6)
It reads as follows:
For
information leading to the arrest of George
W. Welch , alias Bull, alias Pickens, etcetry,
etcetry. Operated Bucket Shop in New York under
name HOOKE, LYON, and CINQUER . Height about
5 feet 9 inches. Weight about 180 pounds. Com-
plexion medium, eyes same. Known also under na-
me RROSE SELAVY.
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Figure
3
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Marcel
Ducahmp, Photograph of the original
Wanted (1922) Poster, 1936 © 2000 Succession
Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris
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Figure
4
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Marcel Duchamp, Photo of the
handwritten transcription for
Wanted: $2,000 Reward, 1938
© 2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp,
ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris
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This work originally
appeared sometime between 1922 and 1923 and later in 1938, when Duchamp
used photos taken in 1936 of the original (figs. 3,4) to reconstruct
it.(7)
In 1963 Duchamp used Wanted: $2,000 Reward as the central image,
a poster within a poster, for his first museum retrospective, by or
of Marcel Duchamp or Rrose Selavy (fig.5). In the context of
his retrospective, where 114 of his works were displayed,(8)
we are left wondering why Duchamp sought to portray himself as a criminal.
The implication being that the character pictured, Duchamp, has gotten
away with something, the question is what? This analysis attempts to determine
the nature of the crime as it was presented in the exhibition poster to
spectators in Pasadena in 1963 and in doing so reveals that Wanted:
$2,000 Reward may not be a simple rectified readymade but instead
a wholly original work.
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Figure
5
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Marcel Duchamp, A Poster Within a Poster, poster for "Marcel
Duchamp: A Retrospective Exhibition," Pasadena Art Museum,
October 8 - November 3, 1963 © 2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp,
ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris
|
We know at least from
Genre Allegory (George Washington) of 1943 that Duchamp is familiar
with this well-known first President in American history though we cannot
determine whether he was aware of him in 1923. If we assume that in
the interval between his first arrival to the United States in 1915
and 1923 Duchamp learns of George Washington, we can then speculate
that perhaps the middle initial "W" as in the common abbreviation GW,
in the first sentence of Wanted: $2000 Reward is a stand in for
Washington resulting in the proper name "George Washington Welch". I
make this leap in considering simultaneously the proceeding word "Welch"
and how it interacts with the name and mythology of George Washington.
If we look up welch in Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary we find
that it is a variation on Welsh a word already in usage by 1905, whose
second entry means to break one's word:
Main
Entry: welsh(9)
Pronunciation: 'welsh, 'welch
Function: intransitive verb
Etymology: probably from Welsh, adjective
Date: 1905
1 : to avoid payment -- used with on
<welched on his debts>
2 : to break one's word : RENEGE
<welched on their promises>
- welsh·er noun |
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Figure
6
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Marcel
Duchamp, Genre Allegory [George Washington], 1943 ©
2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris
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Figure
7
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Marcel
Duchamp, Self Portrait in Profile, Zinc template, 1957
© 2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris
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Thus, the noun "welch"
after the name "Washington" disappoints our expectations as we are more
likely to remember Washington for his virtue since his character is often
defined by the well known story of the cherry tree and the famous line
"I cannot tell a lie...." The juxtaposition of the symbolism surrounding
"George Washington" and the definition of "Welch" yields a construction
such as virtue-purity (George Washington) reneged-broken
(Welch). If we apply this notion of purity to the readymades, since after
all they demonstrate that choice is the purest possible artistic expression,
we begin to realize the significance of the concept "purity reneged."
This occurs only if we accept that compelling evidence today reveals that
the ready-mades such as In advance of a Broken Arm (1915) or Hat
Rack (1917)(10)
are not the operation of pure choice but cleverly crafted to appear as
if hand selected industrially produced objects. An additional interpretation
of 'George W Welch' transposes the persona of a dishonest Washington directly
to Duchamp himself (figs.6, 7), where we can see that perhaps Duchamp
wishes to portray the nature of his crime through the characterization
of a virtuous or honest artist/leader that has broken his word. With either
reading already we sense a theme of deception.
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Figure
8
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Marcel
Duchamp, With Hidden Noise (bottom), 1916 © 2000 Succession
Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris
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This theme continues
in the same sentence with the use of the words alias and etcetry
visually linked by repetition and their appearance in lowercase. The word
alias is significant when the proper English pronunciation "el
- e - as" is mildly re-stressed, resulting in the sound "a - lie- as."
The beginning "a" sound disappears completely when the two aliases are
pronounced in succession, the resulting sound yields - lies, lies. The
second set of repeated words in lowercase letters in this sentence is
"etcetry, etcetry." The word "etcetry" is a playful variation of et cetera
spoken with a southern drawl, signifying others of the same kind, but
if we look at it as a French homophone it takes on new meaning. I should
note that Duchamp was deeply interested in the writings of Raymond Roussel
dating back to 1912 and particularly in his word
play(11)
that was based on a system of slightly distorted homophones.(12)
Also, we see in other works such as With Hidden Noise (fig.
8) of 1916 that Duchamp already easily jumps between French and English.
Therefore it is not a great leap to transform etcetry into "et
c'est [le] tri" the final try (pronounced: tree) perfectly correlating
with tri, the participle of the verb trier in French. Le
Grand Robert dictionary of the French language gives a definition of this
verb and dates its first appearance in the language:
TRIER
v. tr. - V. 1160; p.e. bas lat. Tritare<broyer> ,
du class. terere, parce <qu' on broie le grain pour en
separer les parties inutilisables>
1. Choisir parmi d'autres; extraire d'un plus grand nombre, après
examen. Trier des semences une a une. Ouvrier qui trie les assiettes
sans defaut. Trier les homes propres au service. Selectionner.-
Trier des graines sur le volet. - Au fig. Choisir en operant une
selection tres stricte. On restreint le nombre des nouveaux arrivants,
on les trie sur le volet(13). |
The translation from French to English for trier is to sort, select,
pick or hand pick.(14)
The resulting phrase "et c'est [le] tri" translates to the English "and
it is [the] sorting" or "and it is [the] choosing". Now, if we combine
the lowercase words alias and etcetry linked by their proximity,
repetition and lowercase status in the sentence we arrive at the phrase
"lies and it is [the] choosing, lies and it is [the] choosing" or "lies,
lies, and it is [the] choosing, and it is [the] choosing." As in the case
of George Washington Welch, the theme of deception emerges from the text
in Wanted: $2000 Reward. In this example an allusion to the ready-mades,
defined as objects "elevated to the status of art by the mere act of the
artist's selection,"(15)
may surface as the act of selection is directly addressed by the use of
trier while simultaneously the definition of the ready-mades as
a process of selection is put to question by prefacing the act with the
notion of lying. As we will see, the next example reiterates this emerging
theme of false choices.
In the same sentence we find the proper names "Bull" and "Pickens" thematically
connected by the use of capital letters. Other than the large male farm
animal, "Bull" signifies a falsehood or a down-right lie in a colloquial
sense, as in the common expression "that's a load of bull." The next word
"Pickens" is the southern drawl equivalent of "pickings" from which one
need not go far to arrive at its synonym, "choices [selections]". When
these two words are combined the result is "Bull Pickens [Pickings]" or
" false choices [selections]." In light of the previous two examples and
in the context of the ready-mades this example also seems to challenge
the authenticity of the ready-mades as everyday objects raised to the
status of art solely through an artist's choice.
The following sentence - "Operated Bucket Shop in New York under name
HOOKE, LYON, and CINQUER" - may further the theme of deception in connection
to the ready-mades. First, we should take note of Duchamp's use of "Operated"
at the beginning of this sentence since he often uses the term "operation"
when referring to processes surrounding the ready-mades. An example appears
in one of his notes in the The Green Box that states," to separate
the mass-produced ready-made from the ready found - the separation is
an operation."(16)
A definition for "bucket shop" from Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
a term that dates back to 1875, aids in addressing the remainder of the
sentence:
Main
Entry:(17)
Function: noun
Date: 1875
1 - : a saloon in which liquor was formerly sold from or dispensed
in open containers (as buckets or pitchers)
2 -a- : a gambling establishment that formerly used market fluctuations
(as in securities or commodities) as a basis for gaming b- : a dishonest
brokerage firm; especially : one that formerly failed to
execute customers' margin orders in expectation of making a profit
from market fluctuations adverse to the customers' interests. |
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Figure
9
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Marcel
Duchamp, The Blind Man, no. 1, 1917 © 2000 Succession
Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris
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The operator of a bucket
shop thus capitalizes on the gullibility and blindness of individuals
to see that they are being taken (fig. 9). A successful sale requires
that the customer take the bait as the expression goes, "hook, line and
sinker" a homophone derived from the aliases HOOKE, LYON and CINQUER appearing
at the end of the sentence. Duchamp then, may see himself in New York
as the operator of a bucket shop of sorts where questionable gaming or
brokering may translate literally to his not following art world rules.
From the "dishonesty" of claiming the ready-mades, a product of the artist's
choice, to the eventual signing of inaccurate versions of the ready-mades
Duchamp's actions become the equivalent of selling margin orders for profit
adverse to customers' interests or when put into the art context, the
audience's expectations. By delivering an inaccurate story to his immediate
audience, Duchamp drives the figurative 'HOOKE' deeper and with every
passing generation his "crime of deception" quietly fades from view, as
the surrogates he happily signs(18)
become the "sign" for the lost originals. Through the proliferation of
the photographic documentation of these over time he virtually replaces
the few smoking gun originals that nevertheless co-exist, as those in
the Box in the Valise of 1941. In 1963 around the time of the Pasadena
retrospective, Teeny [Duchamp] describes Marcel Duchamp's reaction to
Richard Hamilton's article for Art International as making Duchamp
feel "transparent… as some fish are, showing their bones and everything."
(19)
In it Hamilton writes:
Duchamp
has busied himself for many years in the propagation of his achievements
thorough the media of printed reproductions and certified copies
so that now we begin to accept the substitute as the work. I certainly
fell in the well-laid trap so thoroughly that I boasted of knowing
what he had done without ever having seen more than a few things
in the flesh…(20) |
Indeed up until a few
years ago, our reading of Duchamp's oeuvre had long ago shifted from direct
observation to glimpses at inaccurate versions of the ready-mades and
the reiterated voices of what the critics saw and see as Jasper John's
cast sculpture reveals so eloquently. Even early on, though, there were
murmurs that may have pointed at the "deception." André Breton, founder
of the surrealists and friend of Duchamp, may have made allusions to it
in the publication Minotaure from 1935:
Marcel
Duchamp's journey through the artistic looking glass determines
a fundamental crisis of painting and sculpture which reactionary
maneuvers and stock-exchange brokerages will not be able to conceal
much longer.(21) |
I wonder still if Breton's
mention of reactionary maneuvers and stock-exchange brokerages is a direct
reference to Duchamp's bucket shop bait and switch strategy of signing
his name to copies of lost ready-mades or simply to moves in the art world
in the 1930s. In 1964 the "deception" was questioned again when Alfred
Barr challenged Duchamp's concept of indifference in selecting the ready-mades
at a panel discussion at MOMA by asking "why do they look so beautiful
today?" Duchamp answered,"Nobody's perfect."(22)
Perhaps the imperfection was always intended; perhaps the fugitive pictured
in Wanted: $2,000 Reward wants to get caught, just not immediately.
The remaining text in Wanted: $2,000 Reward seems more descriptive
than cryptic describing a set of physical attributes following the convention
of wanted type posters. Other than the well-known homophone RROSE SELAVY,
Duchamp's female alter ego first appearing in 1920, which when pronounced
in French yields "Eros, c'est la vie" or in English, "Eros, [that] is
life," this final text appears barren of secondary meanings. It seems
simply to function as a delay in the capture of the "criminal" by misdirecting
our attention and keeping us from challenging the "official story" of
Wanted: $2,000 Reward.
But does it really end there? If we continue looking for further wordplay
relating to the ready-mades we could read "Height" as its equivalent in
French, "Hauteur" a homonym for auteur that translates to the English
author followed by the numbers 5 and 9 correlating to feet and
inches. Could these instead be an approximation of the number of important
ready-mades 'about' 14 that Duchamp 'authored' and wishes to be measured
against? And could 'Weight' be a homonym for "Wait" or delay, a
concept Duchamp explored from his subtitling the Large Glass of
1923 delay in glass,(23)
to the various delays in the publication of his notes, to his posthumous
unveiling of Etant Donnes in 1969 to our present delayed further
understanding of his works? If we continue to translate measures, could
we take the 180 lbs. in the context of delay and translate it to the French
kilogram and end up with 81.81(repeating), Duchamp's age at death. This
number also roughly matches the number of years in delay from the unveiling
of the first well known ready-made, Fountain of 1917, to our present
understanding that it along with the other ready-mades were more than
simply operations of choice. Indeed this particular delay brings us to
a time in history when we can finally asses the true "weight" of his oeuvre,
particularly when we recall that he was willing to wait fifty or a hundred
years for his ideal audience. And if as they say, "time is money" can
we translate the $2,000 or 2K from money to years and mark our time and
ourselves as the arrival of his much 'wanted' ideal audience?
Many of these last observations, I realize, may be marred with conjecture
but I offer them to raise the question of intentionality in reading Duchamp's
work. When is one over reading or misinterpreting the work and when are
certain connections justified? When our readings turn up incredible results
we are left to wonder whether it is just our imagination or if it is possible
for one man to juggle simultaneously such a vast amount of multiplicity
of meaning.
Whether he could, could not or did should be debated and in terms of Wanted:
$2000 Reward the apparent references to lies, choices and the ready-mades
should be central to the discussion. To answer the question of intentionality
I believe it is important first to attempt to find a version of the original
joke poster, if there ever existed one. If the search turns up an original
then the argument is settled and Duchamp simply found an extremely appropriate
ready-made in 1923 and modified it slightly.
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to enlarge
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Figure
10
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Marcel
Duchamp, Boite-en-valise (The Box in a Valise), folder
9, 1941 © 2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP,
Paris
|
On the other hand, if
there is no evidence of such a poster then this analysis may aid in re-defining
Wanted: $2000 Reward as one amongst the growing group of highly
layered handcrafted works originally classified as ready-mades, rectified
ready-mades, and assisted ready-mades to name a few of Duchamp's designations.
From urinal to snow shovel present findings consistently demonstrate that
Duchamp may have never settled for simple choice, though he went to great
pains to make it appear so. There are many inconsistencies surrounding
Wanted: $2,000 Reward that point to this being the case. For one,
Wanted: $2,000 Reward is grouped in Duchamp's portable museum,
Box in a Valise of 1941 (fig.10), with three other works
including L.H.O.O.Q. that has now convincingly been proven by Rhonda Roland
Shearer to be a deftly refinished photo composite of Duchamp's face and
the Mona
Lisa's instead of a cheap chromo reproduction of the Gioconda as the
"official story" claims.(24)
The other two works in the grouping, Tzanck Check (1919) and Obligation
de Monte Carlo (1924), both known to be handcrafted surrogates of
actual documents, classified as imitated rectified ready-mades. It seems,
therefore, implausible in terms of the grouping in the Box and in the
broader context of the other handmade ready-mades that Duchamp would include
such a simple slightly altered found object in his oeuvre. And furthermore,
it is difficult to imagine a self-described meticulous man keenly aware
of his place in history and moreover the workings of posterity choosing
what overtly looks like a slightly altered playful "joke" as the attraction
to his most important exhibition.(25)
Other incongruities remain, such as the many homophonic allusions and
particularly those that jump from English to French, a trademark in Duchamp's
punning. Would a New York joke poster writer, writing for an English speaking
audience in the 1920s pun in French? And finally, can the correlation
with present knowledge of false ready-mades be ignored in light of the
apparent repeated references to deception and selection in Wanted:
$2,000 Reward as deciphered in this essay?
As the body of evidence grows and demonstrates Duchamp's ability and wish
to visually layer his works in terms of multiplicity of viewpoints and
simultaneity of meaning then it follows that he may have pursued similar
ends in works like Wanted: $2,000 Reward that focus on the dimension
of language. Duchamp puts it best:
I
like words in a poetic sense. Puns for me are like rhymes ... for
me, words are not merely a means of communication. You know, puns
have always been considered a low form of wit, but I find them a
source of stimulation both because of their actual sound and because
of unexpected meanings attached to the interrelationship of disparate
words. For me, this is an infinite field of joy and it's always
right at hand. Sometimes four or five different levels of meaning
come through.(26) |
If we take Duchamp at
his word in this instance, we hear clearly that he not only can arrive
at multiple meanings (up to four or five levels) but also enjoys bending
language in the manner this deciphering of Wanted: $2,000 Reward
proposes he may have done.
To end I want to add
one last possible reference to the ready-mades and the meaning of art
in general found in the title of the piece, WANTED, printed in bold
red block lettering at the top of the poster. The connection comes when
we think of the reason for wanted posters in the first place.
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to enlarge
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Figure
11
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Marcel
Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q., 1919 © 2000 Succession Marcel
Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris
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to enlarge
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Figure
12
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Marcel
Duchamp, L.H.O.O.Q. Shaved, 1965 © 2000 Succession
Marcel Duchamp, ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris
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Wanted posters are
meant to activate looking in the eventual hope of finding. As when we
"L.H.O.O.Q." [read: LOOK] closely in 1919
and find Marcel Duchamp where the Mona Lisa should be and "rasée" [read:
re-see] in 1965 (figs.11,12) that he has gone
again,(27)
then perhaps in Wanted: $2000 Reward, Marcel Duchamp affords
us another chance to find him out and in the process of re-discovery
we end up claiming our reward: a way back to an active role in the appreciation
of art that involves not only looking with our eyes but also with our
imagination and the full capacity of our intellect or as Jasper Johns
describes "through the retinal boundaries which had been established
with Impressionism into a field where language, thought and vision act
upon one another."(28)
And, if we accept this role, in the end we become artists in a sense
as our readings - what we choose to see - become the true ready-mades
found again in the wake of their disappearance.(29)
After all, tout-fait (ready-made) is a homophone for tu fait
(you make).(30)
A ready-made
is a work of art without an artist to make it.
Marcel Duchamp, 1963
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to enlarge
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Marvin
Lazarus, Retouched photograph of Duchamp with moustache and goatee
drawn on his face at the 1961 "Assemblages" exhibition
at the Museum of Modern Art © 2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp,
ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris
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1.
Ades, Dawn; Cox, Niel; Hopkins, David. Marcel Duchamp. London:
Thames and Hudson, 1999, p. 71.
2.
Ades, p. 71.
3.
Tomkins, Calvin. Duchamp, A Biography. New York: Henry Holt and
Company, 1996, p. 226.
4.
Follow this link to read compelling evidence in Rhonda Roland Shearer's
scientific discoveries that reveal the ready-mades are not.
5.
Follow this hyperlink to see more evidence by Rhonda Roland Shearer
that points to unexpected dimensions in Duchamp's art.
6.
Joselit, David. Infinite Regress, Marcel Duchamp 1910-1914. Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT, 1998, p.108.
7.
Bonk, Ecke. Marcel Duchamp, The Box in a Valise. New York: Rizzoli,
1989, p. 243.
8.
D'Harnoncourt, Anne; McShine, Kynaston (eds.). Marcel Duchamp.
Munich: Prestel, 1989, p. 28. Walter Hopps organized the exhibition
held at the Pasadena Art Museum between October 8 and November 9, 1963.
Duchamp designed the poster and catalog cover for the exhibition.
9.
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th ed., 1999, Merriam-Webster,
Incorporated. "Welch" is a variation of "welsh."
To confirm the existence and match the definition to the era, I have
verified in a 1920 copy of Webster's New International Dictionary that
the definition is consistent with its use in the analysis. I have chosen
to use the updated version because the tenth edition includes the sense
of the word in the 1920s but also gives a more nuanced definition as
well as provides the date of its first appearance in the English language.
10.
Rhonda Roland Shearer convincingly demonstrates that both of these ready-mades
are not simple found objects. In the case of In Advance of a Broken
Arm, the meeting of the arm to the shovelhead is so fragile that
the shovel would break at the neck if used to shovel snow. Furthermore,
the shovel scoop is unsupported in the back, thus making it flimsy and
unusable as a surface for shoveling. The Hat Rack is equally
problematic as a real object as it appears in The Box in a Valise
reproduction as an asymmetrical five hooked impossible looking construction.
This differs greatly from subsequent versions (i.e. Schwarz) that offer
six symmetrical hooks. Follow this link
to read about these discoveries in more detail.
11.
Follow this link to read more about Duchamp's word play. Through a collection
of excellent examples this article by Steven Jay Gould extensively explores,
deciphers and catalogues many of Duchamp's creative uses of language.
12.
Ades, p. 109.
13.
Le Grand Robert de la Langue Francaise, Deuxieme Edition copyright
© 1985 by Dictionnaires Le Robert, Paris.
14.
The Collins Robert French Dictionary, 1995, New York: HarperCollins,
Paris: Dictionnaires Le Robert. I should point out that trier
comes from the Latin tritare whose French synonym is broyer,
to grind as appears in the definition of trier in Le Robert.
This connection is difficult to overlook when we consider that Duchamp
focuses on the grinding and milling process in three other works, his
Chocolate Grinder (Broyeuse de Chocolat) of 1913, Coffee Mill (Moulin
a Café) 1911 and Glider Containing a Water Mill in Neighboring
Metals of 1913-15. Furthermore, both the Chocolate Grinder
and the Water Mill reappear as central images in the Large
Glass of 1923. The process of selection as a sorting out of useful
and useless ("qu'on broie le grain pour en separer les parties
inutilisables") as well as a generating force (Water Mill)
may point to a theme in the Large Glass centering on the creative
process itself particularly in terms of idea generation [water mill],
filtering [sieves], and whole to parts [grinder].
15.
Naumann, Francis. Marcel Duchamp, The Art of Making Art in the Age
of Mechanical Reproduction. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc, 1999,
p. 299.
16.
Ades, p. 155.
17.
Merriam-Webster's
Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition, 1999, Merriam-Webster, Incorporated.
To confirm the existence and match the definition to the era, I have verified
in a 1920 copy of Webster's New International Dictionary that the definition
is consistent with its use in the analysis. I have chosen to use the updated
version because the tenth edition gives a fuller definition outlining
the history of the expression as well as providing the date of its first
appearance in the English language.
18.
Incidentally, Duchamp signed these copies with the inscription "pour
copie conforme," re-written as a homophone in English it yields "poor
copy con for me". By "poor copy" Duchamp may be referring
to the growing evidence (by Rhonda Roland Shearer) that the ready-mades
are impossible objects whose construction in three dimensions is quite
simply impossible since the lost originals, now only seen in photo form,
appear to be composite images comprising multiple viewpoints spliced to
form one coherent image. The "con for me" reference may thus
point to the notion that with every new manifestation of an incorrect
three dimensional version of a readymade we grow blinder to the discrepancies
in the originals thus the new version serves to support Duchamp's ruse
and thus the con [is made] for him.
19.
Naumann, p. 235.
20.
Ibid.
21.
André Breton from Nauman, p.161.
22.
Tomkins, p. 427.
23.
Joselit, p.143.
24.
d'Harnoncourt, p. 289.
25.
In Tomkins, p. 445, Duchamp discusses with the author in 1964 the roughly
fifty year cycles that scientific ideas go through before being replaced
by newer ideas that challenge everything before them. He also touches
on humor as follows: I never could stand the seriousness of life, but
when the serious is tinted with humor, it makes a nicer color. Duchamp
further explains his position on posterity in 1952 in Bonk, p. 18, from
a conversation with Suzanne Duchamp and Jean Crotti: "Artists of
all times are like the gamblers of Monte Carlo, and this blind lottery
allows some to succeed and ruins others. In my opinion, neither the winners
nor the losers are worth worrying about. Everything happens through pure
luck. Posterity is a real bitch who cheats some, reinstates others (El
Greco) and reserves the right to change her mind every 50 years."
26.
Marcel Duchamp, quoted from: Kuenzli, Rudolf and Francis M. Naumann (eds.).
Marcel Duchamp, Artist of the Century. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 1989,
p. 6.
27.
Follow this hyperlink to see the hide and seek Wilson-Lincoln effect illustrated.
For Duchamp, the ephemeral nature as well as the relativistic aspect of
perception may be central to his oeuvre, where the theme of "now
you see it, now you don't" constantly surfaces. This is consistent
with the frustration of trying to grasp multiple viewpoints/meanings simultaneously
in Duchamp's work both with his puns as well as the "impossible
ready-mades."
28.
Johns, Jasper. "Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)," Artforum
7, no. 3. (November 1968), p. 6.
29.
Tomkins, p. 397. Duchamp speaks of the artist's role: the creative act
is not performed by the artist alone. The spectator brings the work in
contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner
qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.
30.
Special thanks
to Monsieur André Gervais whose comments during the writing of
this article have strengthened the final result.
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