No, not like a scotch-taped bazillion dollar bill under the seat cushions to the antique carved Austrian leather sofa in the Cigar Room, or the long-misplaced car registration, no... more like the objet trouvé in Duchamp's work. Americans sometimes call it "readymade." For some reason (I'm thinking fatigue, too many tears, excessive computer use, conjunctivitis, illicit drugs), our red and inflamed eyeballs will suddenly opt to see transcendent art in an ordinary object, or, more commonly, in the bouleversant juxtaposition of ordinary objects, especially when these objects are seen outside of their arena of function. A water-stained raw silk teal-colored upturned shoe with a Social Security Benefit Statement impaled on the high heel. A mannequin's nude arm hung with [cold] rusty specula. That sort of thing. A purist might contend that the art of objet trouvé must be found already "assembled," that is, without feng shui rearrangement, purposeful distressing of materials, hidden glues, or the use of Naval Jelly rust remover.
The presentation platform/performance is critical to the success of the piece. (I am defining success as [a] receipt as art [b] recognition of the dissonance created by an objet that has been trouvé -- often causing a slight curl of the lip, flare of the nostril, arch of the brow.) A Doric column, stunted? A plain table. An unsanded and warped piece of plywood. A see-through plastic container. AstroTurf.
How else to liberate the art inherent in a urinal (Fountain), bicycle wheel, snow shovel (In Advance of a Broken Arm)?
Addressing the Society of Independent Artists in 1917, a bunch o' ninnies if ever there were a bunch o' ninnies, Duchamp defended Mr. Mutt, his second self and "finder" of the displaced art of the urinal. "Whether Mr. Mutt with his own hands made the fountain or not has no importance. He chose it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so that its useful significance disappeared under a new title and point of view -- he created a new thought for the object."
And, of course, additional instructive context/content is provided by the gallery, museum, store front, bodega, private residence, or dog house. Occasionally, too, a really helpful descriptive title is tacked up next to the art object on a shabby, wrinkled index card.
Okay, so I am cuckoo for Duchamp. He can make me smile -- that's how I react to most of his readymades -- and he can worry me, pickpickpick at me -- that's how I feel when I put together [in my head] his Etant Donnés, installed in the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1969. He is supposed to have worked on it, secretly, for about 20 years -- even his wife knew nothing about it. Cheater.
That trickster.
In 1964 -- just to confound us a bit more, or maybe to make a point -- through the considerable auspices of Arturo Schwartz's Galleria Schwarz in Milan, Duchamp named 14 Readymades as his most fundamental, his most "important." The Untouchables.
Ah, but he issued them in "replicas in editions of eight," the rat! O Chortles Galore!
You have to admit there's more of a profundity there than in, say, some old Campbell's Tomato Soup Cans.
Readymades are hardly simplistic, even if simple.
Easter 1916 (I know! I know! Do you know?) -- Walter Arensberg and Duchamp collaborated to make Hidden Noise, a ball of twine captured between specially engraved copper plates, which are attached by four bolts. Inside the ball of twine, there is something which cheerfully and annoyingly rattles -- a final addition put there by Arensberg at Duchamp's bidding, though Duchamp would never know what it was.
"Before I finished it Arensberg put something inside the ball of twine, and never told me what it was, and I didn't want to know. It was a sort of secret between us, and it makes noise, so we called this a Ready-made with a hidden noise. Listen to it. I don't know; I will never know whether it is a diamond or a coin."
The copper plates were engraved with an inscription of English and French words, what Duchamp called an "exercise in comparative orthography." There are strict rules of alignment, with three arrows indicating the route of the line from the lower plate to the upper -- all maintaining the perfect loquacious state of having no meaning.
A replica was made in 1963, and in 1964, Duchamp chose Hidden Noise as one of the 14 fundamental Readymades, and so, those pesky replicas in editions of eight were issued. However, Duchamp instructed that the Babel of the engraving not be reproduced. He kept the rattling unknown thing, though, and his second wife Alexina took on the task of introducing the object inside the ball of twine.
(Why preserve the engraving as unique? Any ideas?)
Nihilistic dadaism? I think not (snort::sniff). That way out is too easy, and uncritical. No, not dada, not with such careful insertion, and then refusal of meaning, even when secret, even when willfully unknown. Oh, la di da!
Did you know that Fred has an astonishing eye and ear for art? He won't claim it, unless riled. But he has *way* too much faith in artists, and too little for himself. "I don't even know what stuff is art and what isn't."
But he's not in the least naive. Oh, he will pretend cluelessness when it suits him -- but I've never bought into it. I think he struggles when trying to bridge the gap between appreciation and criticism -- the effort isn't valuable enough to make him dig for the words he needs. Or maybe it is just a guy thing. Years of Boy's School.
I want to whisper in his lovely ear one of Duchamp's ideas: "The spectator makes the picture." I don't because he seems already set to swat at me as if at a profoundly annoying horsefly.) Duchamp would have counted himself lucky to have The Fredster join him in creative participation. Anyway, I have spent astonishingly little time in museums and galleries with him. I would like to but then I would also like to play tennis and go back to work. Harumph.
Those times we have purposefully traveled to look at Art, there where we knew that Art was kept, and we weren't likely to be tricked?
The label assumed gargantuan importance.
Your Friend,
L.H.O.O.Q.
photo by Alfred Steiglitz, 1917
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