top ten for Duchamp's piss pot
mdeli
cettainly was talented, possessed intellect and some skill but was a
lazy fart who produced more gas then painting.
His early painted works are interesting and among the few abstract
works which express three dimensions. He is historically admired for
doing all the show-biz nonsense which is presently required for
fashionable success today. His urinal, most later works and lots of
his statements are really just plain stupid. He was a Dadaist who
outlived his time and admitted it. He did the right thing by taking
rich old ladies for a ride long before Warhol got the idea. I have
nothing against charlatans especially when they treat it with
humor."There’s a sucker born every minute," and I certainly believe
that anyone who can make a living selling artwork without a modicum of
skill should do so.
Unlike so many other Dadaist losers Duchamp stayed fashionable .
He remains a major role model for today's Modern Academic Art student
who attempts little more then a repeat of his antiquated ideas while
suffering a nostalgia for a Dadaistic world that never was. They evoke
the old nonsense Dada aesthetics in Post Modernist babble which their
ignorance of art history leads them to imagine is utterly new.
Unlike Duchamp the Modern Academic Art student never earned his right
to laziness and is in most cases destined as an artist to earn purely
abstract non-objective money. His ideas of how to fashionably shock
people without the medium of artistic skill are but a boring
repetition of a stale joke.
(Important ART NEWS!)
It is rumored that Christo has temporarily postponed his Project to
cover the Eiffel tower with condoms. I hear he now plans to be first
human to piss in Duchamp’s virginal urinal.
...no skill no art
"The Emperor's New Clothes aren't clothing you stupid little girl. They are body installations containing invisible Color Fields."
Tired of Modern Art? Check out my web page
New address- http://www3.sympatico.ca/manideli
silverpoint
Duchamp's classic Radical Gesture?
Posters should try not to let Rauschenberg and other heroic radical
gesturers hog up too much of the list, and of course can include one of
their own pieces so long as they can "defend their position" and "explain
their intentions."
It will be "challenging," to the very last.
"mdeli" <n...@mail.com> wrote in message
news:3c9cc956...@news1.on.sympatico.ca...
Todd Strickland
"silverpoint" <etenthstr...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:a7iu74$7n7$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
> Why not a top 10 list of the all time re-re-re-re-re-re-re-iterations of
> Duchamp's classic Radical Gesture?
Why not a top 10 list of the all time re-re-re-re-re-re-re-iterations of
Michelangelo's classicism?
Why not a top 10 list of the all time re-re-re-re-re-re-re-iterations of
Millet's poor peasants?
Why not a top 10 list of the all time re-re-re-re-re-re-re-iterations of
Monet's color?
Why not a top 10 list of the all time re-re-re-re-re-re-re-iterations of
etc, etc...?
Just about everything of value in art gets repeated. Why does repetition of
this particular idea so annoy you?
Years after the fact Duchamp was asked what Dada had meant to him. His
answer? "Freedom."
Isn't that a gesture worth repeating?
Todd Strickland
silverpoint
regurgitating it as if it were your own original creation.
(snip)
> Why not a top 10 list of the all time re-re-re-re-re-re-re-iterations of
> Michelangelo's classicism?
>
Michelangelo's influence on the Mannerists and a long time later on Rubens
and others is obvious. His influence in art is so huge that, like Titian,
it starts to become invisible or taken for granted. No later artists earned
aplomb for producing xerox copies of the Sistine Chapel, unlike those who
simply substitute Duchamp's found objects with other everyday objects.
> Why not a top 10 list of the all time re-re-re-re-re-re-re-iterations of
> Millet's poor peasants?
>
Van Gogh was quite deeply influenced by Millet in both attitude and manner.
Van Gogh stands strongly as an independent artist with no need to go on
yammering about his debt to Millet's "radical gesture" of painting peasants.
Likewise Millet owed a great debt to Brueghel and other earlier artists;
there's a lot in common among the artists from that area and a certain
almost familial resemblance, yet new inventions sprung up all the time.
> Why not a top 10 list of the all time re-re-re-re-re-re-re-iterations of
> Monet's color?
>
This is a painterly idea, color, rooted in painting itself, and is not an
element of anti-art. Sure, Impressionist color made a lasting impact on
painting, but the art it produced remained simply painting, not an endlessly
mimicked "radical gesture."
> Why not a top 10 list of the all time re-re-re-re-re-re-re-iterations of
> etc, etc...?
>
> Just about everything of value in art gets repeated. Why does repetition
of
> this particular idea so annoy you?
>
> Years after the fact Duchamp was asked what Dada had meant to him. His
> answer? "Freedom."
>
Perhaps Duchamp did enjoy some sense of "freedom" from what he did,
especially freedom from learning to paint like the artists he so jealously
resented, namely Matisse and Picasso. Nowadays, everyone can enjoy this
same freedom and applaud one another for it. How are countless thousands of
artists, all cranking out the exact same idea and asking the same questions
("What is art?" "Is this art?") and getting the same stock answers enjoying
some sort of "freedom"?
> Isn't that a gesture worth repeating?
>
Worth repeating how many times for how many decades? (Eight decades now,
and counting... and they all still think it's "new.")
"Painting's washed up. Who'll do anything better than that propeller?
Tell me, can you do that?" -- Marcel Duchamp
"This telegram is a work of art if I say it is." -- Robert Rauschenberg
"They've looted Duchamp's store, but all they've done is change the
wrapping paper." -- Pablo Picasso (on the neo-Dadaists of the 1950's)
Todd Strickland
> There's a difference between being influenced by an idea and mindlessly
> regurgitating it as if it were your own original creation.
>
> (snip)
> > Why not a top 10 list of the all time re-re-re-re-re-re-re-iterations of
> > Michelangelo's classicism?
> >
>
> Michelangelo's influence on the Mannerists and a long time later on Rubens
> and others is obvious. His influence in art is so huge that, like Titian,
> it starts to become invisible or taken for granted. No later artists
earned
> aplomb for producing xerox copies of the Sistine Chapel, unlike those who
> simply substitute Duchamp's found objects with other everyday objects.
A Rauschenberg "Combine" could never be mistaken for a Duchamp "Readymade."
Is there a lineage involved? Sure, there is. But I'm sure
Joe-average-art-viewer would much more easily mistake a Carravagio for a
Michelangelo than a Rauschenberg for a Duchamp.
So Duchamp and Rauschenberg aren't your cup of tea. Fine, but just from a
critical point of view Rauschenberg deserves more credit for his own
creativity. And if legions of unsung art students endlessly plagerize
Duchamp, is that somehow his fault? The original gesture was radical, even
if the later day copies are not. And who care if it was "radical" or not?
Duchamp never said that he thought it was radical. It was what it was...
>
> > Why not a top 10 list of the all time re-re-re-re-re-re-re-iterations of
> > Millet's poor peasants?
> >
>
> Van Gogh was quite deeply influenced by Millet in both attitude and
manner.
> Van Gogh stands strongly as an independent artist with no need to go on
> yammering about his debt to Millet's "radical gesture" of painting
peasants.
> Likewise Millet owed a great debt to Brueghel and other earlier artists;
> there's a lot in common among the artists from that area and a certain
> almost familial resemblance, yet new inventions sprung up all the time.
Is this not true today? I don't see just Duchamp rip-offs everywhere. The
only place I do see such rip-offs is in the graduate works of art students,
most of whom will never sell a damn thing in their lives. Is it fair to
criticize an entire epoch of art history because of the poor quality of work
from its lowest artists? Don't you think there were hordes of imitators who
ripped-off Millet and Corot(poorly, no doubt) in their own day? We don't
see these works too much any more because they haven't survived, but surely
they were created in large numbers.
I think Duchamp was refering to socio-political freedom (as opposed to
tyranny), not just the personal freedom to "do his own thing." There was a
definite political tinge to Dada events, and to a lesser degree, in
Surrealism. No doubt, there is a lot of nose-thumbing and humorous joking
in Duchamp, but I believe he was very serious about his art, and was quite
politically astute.
>
> > Isn't that a gesture worth repeating?
> >
>
> Worth repeating how many times for how many decades? (Eight decades now,
> and counting... and they all still think it's "new.")
>
> "Painting's washed up. Who'll do anything better than that propeller?
> Tell me, can you do that?" -- Marcel Duchamp
This quote is pure Duchamp, half-sincere, half-mockery, impossible to decide
just how seriously we should take it. Remember, he said this to Leger and
Brancussi, and Leger, champion of the "industrial-look" style of
cubism/constructivism, is the one who retold the story. Is it not possible
(is it not probable!) that Duchamp was MOCKING Leger's naive love of all
things industrial? But in classic French "blague" fashion, Leger didn't
understand he was being mocked, and years later, retold the story as if
Duchamp was praising his work? Leger offers us visions of industrial
strength and "beauty," metalic cylinders and machines ready to propel us
into the modern age. Duchamp is much more ambiguous about technology; he
gives us the refuse, turned up-side down and mounted on a pathetic "found"
stool. It is a cynical view, and I believe the above quote is also a
cynical swipe at his companion's art.
>
> "This telegram is a work of art if I say it is." -- Robert
Rauschenberg
A philosophically defensible position, alla Dando. Or maybe Rauschenburg
was just a little full of himself; not much different from most famous
artists. Didn't Giotto once draw a stupid circle on a sheet of paper in
order to win a Papal commission? What hubris!!! But it worked, and he got
the commission. I guess Giotto and Rauschenberg have something in common
after all!
>
> "They've looted Duchamp's store, but all they've done is change the
> wrapping paper." -- Pablo Picasso (on the neo-Dadaists of the 1950's)
Maybe he was right about some people, or maybe he was just getting a little
too conservative and old fashioned by that time. If he meant Rauschenberg,
Warhol, or Johns, I disagree.
Todd Strickland
silverpoint
which is more than respectably thorough and well thought out. That is
really cool.
"Todd Strickland" <ex...@gw7.gateway.ne.jp> wrote in message
news:a7nqh...@enews1.newsguy.com...
>
(snip>
> > Michelangelo's influence on the Mannerists and a long time later on
Rubens
> > and others is obvious. His influence in art is so huge that, like
Titian,
> > it starts to become invisible or taken for granted. No later artists
> earned
> > aplomb for producing xerox copies of the Sistine Chapel, unlike those
who
> > simply substitute Duchamp's found objects with other everyday objects.
>
> A Rauschenberg "Combine" could never be mistaken for a Duchamp
"Readymade."
> Is there a lineage involved? Sure, there is. But I'm sure
> Joe-average-art-viewer would much more easily mistake a Carravagio for a
> Michelangelo than a Rauschenberg for a Duchamp.
>
> So Duchamp and Rauschenberg aren't your cup of tea. Fine, but just from a
> critical point of view Rauschenberg deserves more credit for his own
> creativity. And if legions of unsung art students endlessly plagerize
> Duchamp, is that somehow his fault? The original gesture was radical,
even
> if the later day copies are not. And who care if it was "radical" or not?
> Duchamp never said that he thought it was radical. It was what it was...
>
A "combine" must then be several found objects cobbled together into a work
of art, not just one object, or two, with paint strokes and other simple
manipulations added to signal that it's the work of an artist, and not a
corner of a trash heap. This is the basis of Rauschenberg, and hardly more
than mediocre graphic design. There is more than a matter of lineage
involved in the relationship between Duchamp and his rote followers,
starting with Johns, Rauschenberg, Warhol, Baldessari, Bruce Nauman, etc.,
etc.
One difference, in deference to the respect that many bestow upon Duchamp's
"original" "radical gesture," is that when the early Dadaists asked the
question "Is this art?", the answer was a resounding NO. That was the joke.
No way that it's art, it's anti-art, and to a generation traumatized by the
spectacle of World War I, faith in the European/Western heritage had been
shaken up among many awfully bright people.
The big coup of the neo-Dadaists was that anti-art flip-flopped and no
longer remained anti-art-- it became the entire basis of art itself, the
greatest and truest art ever done, no less. ART with a capital "A." Thus
it formed the basis of every movement since the 1950's, each of which was
just a paltry retreading of the original Dadaist approach. This also
happened as a result of the center of culture relocating to New York after
WWII; artists that were nobodies back in Paris could find eager listeners
among the still relatively unsophisticated Americans.
(snip)
> > Van Gogh was quite deeply influenced by Millet in both attitude and
> manner.
> > Van Gogh stands strongly as an independent artist with no need to go on
> > yammering about his debt to Millet's "radical gesture" of painting
> peasants.
> > Likewise Millet owed a great debt to Brueghel and other earlier artists;
> > there's a lot in common among the artists from that area and a certain
> > almost familial resemblance, yet new inventions sprung up all the time.
>
> Is this not true today? I don't see just Duchamp rip-offs everywhere.
The
> only place I do see such rip-offs is in the graduate works of art
students,
> most of whom will never sell a damn thing in their lives. Is it fair to
> criticize an entire epoch of art history because of the poor quality of
work
> from its lowest artists? Don't you think there were hordes of imitators
who
> ripped-off Millet and Corot(poorly, no doubt) in their own day? We don't
> see these works too much any more because they haven't survived, but
surely
> they were created in large numbers.
>
Yes, it is more than "fair" to criticize an entire epoch, particularly if it
sucks. There are Duchamp knockoffs everywhere one looks, and has been since
the Death of Painting was declared in the 1960's. Baldessari, Bruce Nauman,
Warhol, legions of "installion" artists, Fluxus, Beuys, Gerhard Richter, the
entire graduate output of nearly every artschool and university in the
entire world for several decades, the list goes on, and on and on.
(snip)
> > Perhaps Duchamp did enjoy some sense of "freedom" from what he did,
> > especially freedom from learning to paint like the artists he so
jealously
> > resented, namely Matisse and Picasso. Nowadays, everyone can enjoy this
> > same freedom and applaud one another for it. How are countless
thousands
> of
> > artists, all cranking out the exact same idea and asking the same
> questions
> > ("What is art?" "Is this art?") and getting the same stock answers
> enjoying
> > some sort of "freedom"?
>
> I think Duchamp was refering to socio-political freedom (as opposed to
> tyranny), not just the personal freedom to "do his own thing." There was
a
> definite political tinge to Dada events, and to a lesser degree, in
> Surrealism. No doubt, there is a lot of nose-thumbing and humorous joking
> in Duchamp, but I believe he was very serious about his art, and was quite
> politically astute.
>
And at what point did Duchamp, a resident of both the free and democratic
republics of both France and the United States, not enjoy socio-political
freedom? Thanks to the First Amendment, that sure was a big splash his
"explosion in a shingle factory" produced at the original Armory Show in New
York. Lack of appreciation of "new" artforms does not equate to political
repression. Duchamp and other modern artists received fame and notoriety
for their efforts, not a lifetime in Gulag. As for the humor in Dadaism,
there's no denying that, and indeed dark and sardonic much of it could be,
and the Surrealists regularly pre-empted criticism by putting down
themselves.
Again, Duchamp achieved the ultimate freedom of an artist, the freedom to
never learn to paint as well nor powerfully as the artists he resented, yet
still get famous somehow. He once put down Picasso as being "nothing but a
figurehead" in the world of art, the same way that physics has Einstein.
Einstein, no less. You heard that right.
> >
> > > Isn't that a gesture worth repeating?
> > >
> >
> > Worth repeating how many times for how many decades? (Eight decades
now,
> > and counting... and they all still think it's "new.")
> >
> > "Painting's washed up. Who'll do anything better than that
propeller?
> > Tell me, can you do that?" -- Marcel Duchamp
>
> This quote is pure Duchamp, half-sincere, half-mockery, impossible to
decide
> just how seriously we should take it. Remember, he said this to Leger and
> Brancussi, and Leger, champion of the "industrial-look" style of
> cubism/constructivism, is the one who retold the story. Is it not
possible
> (is it not probable!) that Duchamp was MOCKING Leger's naive love of all
> things industrial? But in classic French "blague" fashion, Leger didn't
> understand he was being mocked, and years later, retold the story as if
> Duchamp was praising his work? Leger offers us visions of industrial
> strength and "beauty," metalic cylinders and machines ready to propel us
> into the modern age. Duchamp is much more ambiguous about technology; he
> gives us the refuse, turned up-side down and mounted on a pathetic "found"
> stool. It is a cynical view, and I believe the above quote is also a
> cynical swipe at his companion's art.
>
Interesting comments on Leger, who no doubt could be about as blague as it
get, that is quite funny. "Blague" must loosely equate to the American
slang term that one is "dense." Duchamp and his legion of later followers
did, however, believe that "Painting's washed up" and this was codified as a
certainty in the universities in the 1960's.
> >
> > "This telegram is a work of art if I say it is." -- Robert
> Rauschenberg
>
> A philosophically defensible position, alla Dando. Or maybe Rauschenburg
> was just a little full of himself; not much different from most famous
> artists. Didn't Giotto once draw a stupid circle on a sheet of paper in
> order to win a Papal commission? What hubris!!! But it worked, and he
got
> the commission. I guess Giotto and Rauschenberg have something in common
> after all!
>
Giotto didn't draw a "stupid" circle on a piece of paper, he drew a PERFECT
circle, freehand, as the legend goes (similar claims of dexterity and
concentration were later made about Raphael.) The ability to draw a perfect
circle by hand, without a compass, implies supra-human "skill" that is
beyond the ken of normal mortals, amazing "god-given" talent and the rest of
the reasons that great artists were regularly mythologized as being special.
Whether the story is true or not, Giotto did in fact permanently change all
of western art by moving it away from the forms of the Gothic period into
the beginnings of Renaissance concerns about classical form and more complex
conceptions of space. Forget Giotto's stupid circle, his frescoes alone
prove that he's special, artistically powerful, and beyond innovative.
Rauschenberg's position may be philosophically defensible, but artistically
is not. Talk about hubris. With the neo-Dadaists, the anti-artist becomes
the arbitrer of deciding what is or is not art. How does he "say" or
"express" this idea? He places anything he chooses in a gallery. The
gallery context alone then designates it as Art. With this position, every
previous reason that art or artists were considered "special" or noteworthy
goes out the window, and not just mere matters of artistic "skill" but
everything to do with vision and imagination.
> >
> > "They've looted Duchamp's store, but all they've done is change the
> > wrapping paper." -- Pablo Picasso (on the neo-Dadaists of the 1950's)
>
> Maybe he was right about some people, or maybe he was just getting a
little
> too conservative and old fashioned by that time. If he meant
Rauschenberg,
> Warhol, or Johns, I disagree.
>
Picasso meant exactly Jasper Johns and Rauschenberg. He similarly dismissed
Abstract Expressionism because of its inherent weaknesses and slavery to the
unconscious, not because he hadn't already seen much of a century of
abstract art. If Picasso was "old fashioned," it was because he still
practiced painting instead of "going beyond" it. What was worse, Picasso
remained completely and obstinately a figurative painter, an even greater
crime.
Back to Giotto, it's odd that more than a century later that while
struggling as an old man to complete his "Last Judgment" commission,
Michelangelo was still studying the powerful, monumental forms of Giotto
quite humbly, and did not consider him "old fashioned." The early
Renaissance, even, had come about very slowly, as few if any of the still
Gothic (and likewise often forgotten) artists of the 1300's and after could
make use yet of Giotto's discoveries. This is the position that the
neo-Dadaists, all of them, may find themselves in the future, and the price
they'll pay for forgetting Picasso, that "old fashioned" coot.
Todd Strickland
> > I think Duchamp was refering to socio-political freedom (as opposed to
> > tyranny), not just the personal freedom to "do his own thing." There
was
> a
> > definite political tinge to Dada events, and to a lesser degree, in
> > Surrealism. No doubt, there is a lot of nose-thumbing and humorous
joking
> > in Duchamp, but I believe he was very serious about his art, and was
quite
> > politically astute.
> >
>
> And at what point did Duchamp, a resident of both the free and democratic
> republics of both France and the United States, not enjoy socio-political
> freedom? Thanks to the First Amendment, that sure was a big splash his
> "explosion in a shingle factory" produced at the original Armory Show in
New
> York. Lack of appreciation of "new" artforms does not equate to political
> repression. Duchamp and other modern artists received fame and notoriety
> for their efforts, not a lifetime in Gulag. As for the humor in Dadaism,
> there's no denying that, and indeed dark and sardonic much of it could be,
> and the Surrealists regularly pre-empted criticism by putting down
> themselves.
With two World Wars, and wave after wave of Fascism and genocide, simply
living in Europe in the 20th Century was "political," meaning no one could
escape taking sides; even simply burying one's head and having nothing to do
with politics would inevitably draw criticism for one as a supporter of the
status quo, the monarchy, etc. The anti-art stance of Dada was an artistic,
social, and political protest. The French and Swiss artists who undertook
such protests were afforded the freedom to make their statements, but
history could have easily gone otherwise. Duchamp left Europe at an
opportune time, but many others who stayed until (or throughout) the Nazi
occupation faced a very real threat of persecution. In the Soviet Union,
after a brief honeymoon for Modern artists, most were purged and some,
including Malevich, were actually sent to prison. The suppression of the
Bauhaus, and the Entarte Kunst exhibitions put on by the Nazis further show
that being a "cutting edge" artist in those days was serious business. Even
in the States, there are those (myself included) who feel that fascism lurks
in the shadows ("shadow government," that is).
We would all like to believe that art is one of the finer points of society,
expressing transcendental ideals and "freedom of expression." But it can
also be manipulated into political propaganda, and in the end, it remains a
luxury item for the monied elite (the connection between New York MoMA and
the Rockefellers is well documented, but this connection between art and
"big money" is the basis for most of the major private collections in the
world. And let's not even discuss "National" galleries!). Duchamp, I
believe, was very leary of this connection, although he depended on it
himself. When he says his work is about "freedom," I think he means that in
political terms.
Actually, I didn't mean that Leger was especially dense (although he may
have been; I don't know), but that Duchamp was "putting one over on him."
My understanding of the French tradition of the "blague" is to insult your
victim in such a way that he never realizes it, although everyone else gets
the joke. In this case the joke is two-fold, at least. First, Duchamp is
saying that Leger's painting isn't nearly as sleek and "modern" as this
actual machine part. But more cynically, he is putting Leger's aesthetics
to the test, goading him with "is THIS what you aspire to?!"
On the issue of the "death of painting" attitude of a number of '60s
artists, this idea again has some political underpinnings. Being aware of
the above mentioned connection between art and money, and the fact that
works by former "radicals" such as Cezanne, Picasso, and Duchamp were now
highly prized pieces in such monied collections, some artists (Robert
Morris, for example) decided that it was unconscionable to make such
"objects." To aspire to have one's work hang in the Guggenheim was the
equivalent of conspiring with the perpetrators of the Vietnam war. But, in
the end, through photography and documentation, the "happening" turned out
to be just as collectable as any other "piece" of art.
Don't get me wrong, I love Giotto! I don't mean that he is stupid, or that
his art is stupid. But if this story is true, it is an act of hubris far
beyond Rauschenberg's telegram quotation.
In the version I heard (just by ear, so I may be off on the facts, if this
event ever happened at all) the Pope wanted a painting made and rather than
simply give the commission to Giotto, who felt he deserved it by virtue of
his reputation alone (he was probably right), the Pope demanded submissions.
Giotto refused to submit any work, feeling it a matter of honor. Now, the
Pope knew that Giotto was the best artist of his day, but rather than bow to
Giotto's pride, he demanded a submission. He sent a messenger to Giotto's
studio to get it, where Giotto hurriedly drew out the circle on the paper
and handed it to the messenger. When the Pope saw the drawing, he gave the
job to Giotto.
Perhaps the circle was an amazingly accurate freehand miracle. Perhaps the
Pope, understanding the deep symbolic meaning of the circle, recognized
Giotto's amazing grasp of spiritual matters. I don't buy either of those
answers. The Pope had every intention of giving the job to Giotto from the
very beginning, but wanted to make him grovel. When Giotto wouldn't give
in, the Pope needed something, anything, from Giotto to justify giving him
the commission. Giotto turned the tables on the Pope (or whoever it was who
commissioned the work) and made HIM grovel! The point of the circle wasn't
artistic, or religious, but plain old vanity!
>
> Rauschenberg's position may be philosophically defensible, but
artistically
> is not. Talk about hubris. With the neo-Dadaists, the anti-artist
becomes
> the arbitrer of deciding what is or is not art. How does he "say" or
> "express" this idea? He places anything he chooses in a gallery. The
> gallery context alone then designates it as Art. With this position,
every
> previous reason that art or artists were considered "special" or
noteworthy
> goes out the window, and not just mere matters of artistic "skill" but
> everything to do with vision and imagination.
>
Speaking of circles, we seem to be going in one about Rauschenberg ;-) But
I enjoy reading your views.
Todd Strickland
mdeli
>
>Yes, it is more than "fair" to criticize an entire epoch, particularly if it
>sucks. There are Duchamp knockoffs everywhere one looks, and has been since
>the Death of Painting was declared in the 1960's. Baldessari, Bruce Nauman,
>Warhol, legions of "installion" artists, Fluxus, Beuys, Gerhard Richter, the
>entire graduate output of nearly every artschool and university in the
>entire world for several decades, the list goes on, and on and on.
Exactly! As I said here many times, it's all a lame repeat of Dada by
those who don't know their craft and are ignorant of art history.
>Duchamp and his legion of later followers
>did, however, believe that "Painting's washed up" and this was codified as a
>certainty in the universities in the 1960's.
>
He was right. That sort of painting is washed up.
>Again, Duchamp achieved the ultimate freedom of an artist, the freedom to
>never learn to paint as well nor powerfully as the artists he resented, yet
>still get famous somehow. He once put down Picasso as being "nothing but a
>figurehead" in the world of art, the same way that physics has Einstein.
>Einstein, no less. You heard that right.
And Duchamp was right again.
> If Picasso was "old fashioned," it was because he still
>practiced painting instead of "going beyond" it. What was worse, Picasso
>remained completely and obstinately a figurative painter, an even greater
>crime.
And here we part ways.
It is the utter incompetence of Picasso, Mattisse and Cezanne etc.
not the Duchamp effect which is really responsible for today's failure
of so-called-art and the assembly line drivel produced by Modern
Academic Art schools.
The Duchamp effect is only responsible for the Artspeak and
pseudo-philosophical double-talk. It's 90 years of deteriorating skill
and craftsmanship which are responsible for dead artwork.
Duchamp painted far better than Picasso but didn't choose to persue
the matter. He called it right. The sort of art he declared dead is
indeed dead. However, it hasn't stopped Artspeaking blow-bags who run
the Academic system at the moment from talking about it to each other.
Unlike you, I do not believe that the failure of Modern Dada will be
recognized for what it is until the failures of the founders of Modern
Academic Art are reassessed. Until this happens museum curators will
continue to bar entry to most all the finest 20th century work which
is well accepted and can be seen elsewhere by anyone.
Nicole Kidman
Right on! I agree with Todd. Why don't you look at yourself, doesn't your
own work owe quite a bit to Dali???
--
Yours Truly,
Nicole.
silverpoint
"Nicole Kidman" <pwass...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns91EA7B461...@207.217.77.22...
> "Todd Strickland" <ex...@gw7.gateway.ne.jp> wrote in
> news:a7l9e...@enews4.newsguy.com:
>
> >
> > "silverpoint" <etenthstr...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:a7iu74$7n7$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
> >> Why not a top 10 list of the all time re-re-re-re-re-re-re-iterations
> >> of Duchamp's classic Radical Gesture?
Um, no, my work owes nothing to Dali. You must be confusing me with someone
else. Unlike Dali fans, I appreciate great painting.
snip--
Nicole Kidman
news:a8sg8p$5b0$1...@bob.news.rcn.net:
And what in your high mind do you consider "great painting"? Some
examples would be welcome...
--
Yours Truly,
Nicole.
silverpoint
Gallery, Hermitage, and countless others all over the world showing what
earthlings consider to be great painting, the list of examples is quite
lengthy, and was produced by all cultures throughout all of history and even
before. I've heard, though it's no doubt just someone's opinion, that the
Vatican owns a picture or two that some fool once called important. Great
painting has been produced in Japan, Asia, China, Europe, the Americas, I
suppose most everywhere except perhaps Antarctica.
Why should a dadaist care anyhow? It's all dead junk to them, and their
idea is unique & original every single time it is re-performed.
"Nicole Kidman" <pwass...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns91EA8373D...@207.217.77.24...
> "silverpoint" <etenthstr...@hotmail.com> wrote in
> news:a8sg8p$5b0$1...@bob.news.rcn.net:
>
>
silverpoint
>
You got me there-- maybe Duchamp's pisspot isn't so bad after all.
It's like an explosion in a shingle factory. Or was it an explosion among
a bunch of ninth graders attempting to draw dirty pictures?
>
> By the way, here's one of my drawings. I'd like to see what type of
> "critique" you give this!
>
> --
> Yours Truly,
>
> Nicole.
>
>
Nicole Kidman
news:a8t2mj$rqg$1...@bob.news.rcn.net:
> Um, back on planet Earth are places like the Louvre, the Met, MOMA,
> National Gallery, Hermitage, and countless others all over the world
> showing what earthlings consider to be great painting, the list of
> examples is quite lengthy, and was produced by all cultures throughout
> all of history and even before. I've heard, though it's no doubt just
> someone's opinion, that the Vatican owns a picture or two that some
> fool once called important.
>
> and
> their idea is unique & original every single time it is re-performed.
>
> "Nicole Kidman" <pwass...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns91EA8373D...@207.217.77.24...
>> "silverpoint" <etenthstr...@hotmail.com> wrote in
>> news:a8sg8p$5b0$1...@bob.news.rcn.net:
>>
>
>
>>
>> And what in your high mind do you consider "great painting"? Some
>> examples would be welcome...
>>
>> --
>> Yours Truly,
>>
>> Nicole.
>
>
>
Well on a more serious note. I know how to respond to part of your
question. You said:
"Great painting has been produced in Japan, Asia, China, Europe, the
Americas, I suppose most everywhere except perhaps Antarctica. Why should
a dadaist care anyhow? It's all dead junk to them,"
I dont think the dadaists really thought all historical painting was
"dead junk" I know that Duchamp loved painting and had many good friends
who were painters, Joseph Stella and Florine Stettheimer for example.
Whatever you think of them...
Art cannot be approached with too much criteria before hand because it
hinders the "freedom" of the imagination to experience things anew. This
to me is one of the main points of Dada.
Criteria is important but not in the initial experience. I think the
viewer should refrain from passing immediate judgement on art. I do
believe however, that a dynamic internal structure is neccesary to the
viewing of things, especially art...
--
Yours Truly,
Nicole.
silverpoint
criteria when viewing a work of art may blind one to the fact that some
things have become tired, worn out, powerless cliches that appeal only to
those indoctrinated into believing it's new. After over 40 years of
rehashings of the dadaist anti-screed, I don't think that saying it sucks is
exactly passing immediate judgment. If someone believes they are
experiencing Dada anew, their "imagination" has a great deal of "freedom,"
indeed, or has passed into a wormhole and time traveled back to the era of
the horseless carriage and the first electric lights.
What was originally conceived as anti-art, an exercise in absurdity that
reveled in it's own silliness, and a reaction to the horrors of WWI, has
become the most staunchly entrenched, deeply conservative and inflexible,
internationally institutionized, and officially sanctified cultural movement
and ideology ever, outside of the USSR under Stalin. What was also once
anti-art has redefined itself as the only art that is possible to exist, the
very definition of art itself. It is an art form that can exist in only two
places: the white cube of a gallery space, and in the university classrooms
where the faithful are made to receive their gospel.
Of course Duchamp knew lots of painters, he lived in Paris among them and
participated in the infamous armory show in New York along with all the
rest. To generations of neo-dadaists since, the art of the past has been
deemed dead and irrelevant to their nascent evolutionary breakthrough that
went "beyond art," "past the boundaries," and avoided the embarrassing
limitations of a mere craft such as painting, not to mention the years of
mental and physical training necessary to become great painters, as those
who can intuitively compose powerful and original statements with their
retro-pencils and throwback-brushes were once called.
Dada has no internal structure, dynamic or otherwise. Structure, or the
ability to see it, is an attribute of art. This is true of Dada because it
is not art. It is anti-art, and therefore by definition is bereft of these
qualities and of all qualities possessed by art. Redefining anti-art as
being true art is broadening the definition of art ("breaking the boundaries
between art and life") past the point that art has any point or expressive
power of any kind.
Likewise, anti-art is incapable of expressing anything, even an idea.
Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel really is just that-- a real wheel stuck through a
real stool. That's what Duchamp intended it to be, nothing more or less.
Was it art? No-- it is dada, or anti-art. Today, this distinction is lost,
along with the dark humor of taking a bicycle wheel and sticking it in a
gallery. The absurdity of doing so is also lost with no real art with
which to compare such a powerless and pointless gesture, thus making
state-sanctified anti-art it's own worst enemy.
"Nicole Kidman" <pwass...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:Xns91EABF579...@207.217.77.26...
> "silverpoint" <etenthstr...@hotmail.com> wrote in
> news:a8t2mj$rqg$1...@bob.news.rcn.net:
>
> I dont think the dadaists really thought all historical painting was