kant after duchamp
sirb...@hotmail.com
anyone read this one? looks rather tasty. apparently postmodernism is a
return to kant's thing-in-itself, just like duchamp and warhol. it will
probably offend proud chauvinistic middlebrows. here's the synopsis:
Midwest Book Review
Kant After Duchamp brings together eight essays around a central thesis
with many implications for the history of avant-gardes. Marcel Ducham
(Thierry de Duve observes) made the logic of modernist art practice the
subject matter of his work, a shift in aesthetic judgment that replaced
the classical "this is beautiful" with "this is art". De Duve emplys
this shift (replacing the word "beauty" by the word "art") in a
rereading of Kan'ts "Critique of Judgment" that reveals the hidden
links between the radical experiments of Duchamp and the Dadaists and
mainstream pictorial modernism. These essays, all updated, are divided
into four parts. Part I revolves around Duchamp's famous/infamous
"Fountain". Part II explores Duchamp's passage from painting to the
readymades, from art in particular to art in general. Part III looks at
the aesthetic and ethical consequences of the replacement of "beauty"
with "art" in Kant's "Critique of Judgement". Finally, part IV attempts
to reconstruct an "archaeology" of modernism that paves the way for a
renewed understanding of our postmodern condition. Kant After Duchamp
is an important and insightful contribution to an insightful national
understanding of the evolution of art, art appreciation, art education,
and the undeniable political implications arising from the arts in the
popular as well as governmental and academic discussions. --This text
refers to the Hardcover edition.
Review
"Thierry de Duve has sought, in this remarkable text, to 'understand
why Marcel Duchamp was such a great artist.' A task that calls upon
resources beyond those of art history, art criticism, and aesthetic
analysis, of all which the author is master. . . . The tone is wry,
urbane, informed, and urgent; and it is a tribute to his appreciation
of the depth of his subject that he takes us further in our
understanding than we have ever seen before, but leaves us with the
sense that more remains to be said than anyone before had imagined."
-- Arthur C. Danto, Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy,
Columbia University; and art critic, The Nation
smw
sirb...@hotmail.com wrote:
> http://www.amazon.com/Kant-after-Duchamp-October-Books/dp/0262540940/sr=1-1/qid=1169284838/ref=sr_1_1/103-5906300-4915867?ie=UTF8&s=books
>
>
> anyone read this one? looks rather tasty. apparently postmodernism is a
> return to kant's thing-in-itself, just like duchamp and warhol.
Where do you get that from the review?
sirb...@hotmail.com
smw ha escrito:
well that kant was a boring twat and that so was warhol and duchamp.
you having read the former could prolly make your refining corrections.
BuddhaThu
mathematical treatment with or without the synthetic a priori.
Duchamp was in part influenced by Poincare who is a mathematical
intuitionist. He believed that mathematical truth was set by
convention. This is also a Wittgenstein approach. Poincare also did
research on celestial mechanics and the 3 body problem which is also
seen as a precursor to chaos theory.
Nude Descending Staircase No. 2 at first to me was an expression of
the lack of 'simple location.'
'Simple location' as defined by Whitehead is the understanding that
there is no 'location' in a space/time probability state, but that
objects are smeared out in vector states. It is what Wittgenstein
called the 'states of affairs' in his Tractatus.
The classical Poincare relativity space/time relationship is based on
classical mechanics. Here, the influence based on Poincare is evident
since he confined his examinations to proper Euclidean geometric
structures and shapes, which shows lack of curvature, but straight
lines.
It is an expression of a precursor to a 4 dimensional space/time
continuum. It is a 2 dimensional image trying to capture a polytopic
structure into 3 and 4 dimensions.
However, it is also Newtonian in that it adheres to the Newtonian
conception of straight lines in nature. Polytopes in the 4 dimension
cannot have physical straight lines, but it can sometimes be depicted
that way.
In the process manifold of Kantian epistemology, there are straight
lines even if there are no simple locations. Straight lines are a part
of his synthetic a priori of Euclidean Geometry.
Straight lines to me are a Platonic imposition on nature. They are
superimposed into the Platonic solids. But in physical reality, there
are no real straight lines in 4 dimensions.
Duchamp's approach to abstract art is in contrast to Michelangelo.
Michelangelo always drawn and sculpted things in an ideal and often
times exaggerated way, i.e. the huge hands of David, the tiny
infantile penis, contrasted with the strong skeletal musculature of a
grown man. Michelangelo was a Platonist.
Michelangelo would not have recognized convention or art being
discovered this way. Art, to him, had true and eternal objective rules
to be discovered.
He always tried to capture the objective idealization within the
stone.
Duchamp was Kantian in that he was not drawing out images, but
imposing them in.
Idealizations or abstract art is not to mimic the realism of nature.
The abstraction is only a 'deformed' representation of it. But how
they represented it is from two opposite ends.
To Duchamp, art is a positing or a judgment on what is aesthetical. It
is the free creation of the human mind and of the human individual.
Here, Duchamp might be differentiated from Poincare, since Poincare
saw his math and geometrical structure from convention.
Both are intuitive. But it is intuitive to the ego in its proper form.
It is not intuitive to Plato or by way of convention to the norm.
It is his love of Stirner's 'Ego and Its Own.' But note: This does not
mean nihilism.
Nihilism is Bauer, not Stirner.
Stirner was an anarchist. He recognized the freedom of the subject
which stands against the coercive elements.
Here, Bauer will even eliminate the subject for the sake of this
freedom.
In this case, art is always controlled by the subjectivity of the
artist. It is never without the artist as in other types of abstract
art where they just splatter paint all over the canvass with a wind
blower. This is nihilism.
Rather, it is controlled by the ego.
Therefore, art is not the separate creation of the artist, either in
the nihilistic instance, the Platonic instance, or even the
conventional instance. The art is in creation of the artist.
Like Poincare, who inspired him in Nude Descending Staircase No. 2,
art can only exist in the human mind. There is no objective true art
in the stone as in Michelangelo.
Yet, there is an orderly structure of geometry.
Duchamp's Nude Descending Staircase No. 2 is a geometrical expression
of the 4th dimension, which lies according to Coexeter, perpendicular
to the five senses. But this does not mean that it is mystical, or
even abstract. The intuition is of a different sort.
To Duchamp, it is intuition of mental abstract positing, not of
discovering, i.e. in terms of Platonic forms, for this would sideline
into Platonism.
However, here I don't think Duchamp is expressing anything called
'pragmatic' positing. (This is my opinion.)
It is an objective discovery wielded in experience, and not within the
Platonic form or even in a Kantian positing.
***It is abstract art trying to discover experience.***
***It is not abstract art trying to discover mind.***
It is the negation of the Platonic idealization. According to Kant, it
is the understanding that since there is no way to know true art, one
would have to necessitate a pragmatic judgment on it based on the
individual.
For Whitehead, the intuition is of an experience and not just a
pragmatic positing. The psychological activism is clearly from a very
distinct view. It will have objectivity. But it will have objectivity
in experience and not within the Platonic forms.
It will have ontology, not epistemology. The sense and flow of time is
the 4th dimension.
It will be felt even if you are not moving. It is intuitive.
You sense the physical processes intuitively. You are the most
objective Quantum Gauge that measure the direction and flow of the
universe. There is no better atomic clock.
***You are aging.***
This kind of sense is separate from Hume's five. You will feel your
aging spots, your skin sagging, muscles and erection going flaccid,
and the vaginal fluids going dry.
***These are not of the five. It must be felt throughout your entire
body. ***
Here, you don't just posit it. You must feel it, and it won't be
mystical.
The intuition is of a different sort. It is taken **not** of
epistemology, but ontology.
When the geometer Coexter pointed out that we experience the 4th
dimension perpendicular to our senses, but it is no way a mystical
intuition, he is referring to the intuition of the flow in time.
It is not just a practical positing. You should feel it.
It is separate from Hume's five, but implied and **'posited' into the
five by Kant and his understanding of space and time.**
According to Kant, space and time is not something we can passively
discover and know, but must be posited.
Whitehead called it the sixth sense. It was Whitehead who separated it
out and made it into a different sense. It was not Kant's. In
addition, the psychological activism is of a different sort. It is not
one of positing, but experiential interacting.
This sense is not a private and subjective feeling according to
Whitehead. But a feeling sensed by all humans and also metaphysically
sensed by the entire universe. It is from being, hence, the
ontological 4th dimension.
This is the 4th dimension that Duchamp was trying to reveal to us, but
did not know it.
But whereas Kant posited by way of transcendental judgment of art,
Whitehead made it a pragmatic intuitive feeling in the core of our
very nature and experience. It is interactive. It does not come by way
of mere positing.
In the end, Nude Descending Staircase No. 2 is not a subjective
projection of the abstract 4th dimension. It is a collectively
physical and interacting experience.
As a little sideline note: Nude Descending Staircase No. 2 caused
quite a stir and scandal at the 1913 Armory show in NYC.
The New Yorkers were accustomed to 'realistic art.'
Puh-lease, if they only knew about Michelangelo.
When you go into the Sistine Chapel or see the David, take note of the
size of the penises of Michelangelo's sculptures and frescoes.
They are as small as new born babes.
The size of David's is unusually small. I read somewhere on use-net
that this is due tension that curls or shrivels the phallus, which is
a medical condition.
(This means, boys, do not get nervous on your first time.)
But note that this is not the case in the more relaxed stance of Adam
reaching out to God or the Drunkenness of Noah.
The small phalluses are the idealization of Platonic Love.
Look up 'Platonic Love' kiddies. You will take note that it is the
erotic yet nonsexual love for boys. Here, it is the erotic but
nonsexual love for newborn babes, but with very sexy skeletal
musculature of grown men.
This is Michelangelo's idealization of the erotic. It is not naturally
real, but it was an erotic ideal to him. But he would not have
interpreted it that way. He would have thought that this is the ideal
erotic form.
Like Duchamp, he was not into natural realism. He was abstracting. He
was into idealizing what he saw in the Platonic realm. The David has
the skeletal musculature of a buffed guy, but a penis of a child. Was
this due to steroids? I think not.
Michelangelo was into idealizing Plato far too much.
I don't know. Call me a Bohemian. - B.T.
On Jan 20, 4:31 am, sirbl...@hotmail.com wrote:
> http://www.amazon.com/Kant-after-Duchamp-October-Books/dp/0262540940/...
>
> anyone read this one? looks rather tasty. apparently postmodernism is a
> return to kant's thing-in-itself, just likeduchampand warhol. it will
> probably offend proud chauvinistic middlebrows. here's the synopsis:
>
> Midwest Book Review
> Kant AfterDuchampbrings together eight essays around a central thesis
> with many implications for the history of avant-gardes. Marcel Ducham
> (Thierry de Duve observes) made the logic of modernist art practice the
> subject matter of his work, a shift in aesthetic judgment that replaced
> the classical "this is beautiful" with "this is art". De Duve emplys
> this shift (replacing the word "beauty" by the word "art") in a
> rereading of Kan'ts "Critique of Judgment" that reveals the hidden
> links between the radical experiments ofDuchampand the Dadaists and
> mainstream pictorial modernism. These essays, all updated, are divided
> into four parts. Part I revolves aroundDuchamp'sfamous/infamous
> "Fountain". Part II exploresDuchamp'spassage from painting to the
> readymades, from art in particular to art in general. Part III looks at
> the aesthetic and ethical consequences of the replacement of "beauty"
> with "art" in Kant's "Critique of Judgement". Finally, part IV attempts
> to reconstruct an "archaeology" of modernism that paves the way for a
> renewed understanding of our postmodern condition. Kant AfterDuchamp
> is an important and insightful contribution to an insightful national
> understanding of the evolution of art, art appreciation, art education,
> and the undeniable political implications arising from the arts in the
> popular as well as governmental and academic discussions. --This text
> refers to the Hardcover edition.
>
> Review
> "Thierry de Duve has sought, in this remarkable text, to 'understand
> why MarcelDuchampwas such a great artist.' A task that calls upon