Word: duchamps
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Boxes & Coffee Grinders. One of Duchamp's newfound admirers, Pop Painter Jasper Johns, likes to remind scoffers of the cartoon caption, "O.K. So he invented fire-but what did he do after that?" In terms of sheer production, Duchamp is but a pint-sized Prometheus. His lifelong catalogue lists only 208 works. He once miniaturized all of his work that he thought worthwhile, and packaged this portable museum in dispatch cases (200 of them were sold). But as his current exhibition at Manhattan's Cordier & Ekstrom gallery* gives ample proof, his work struck the sparks that set others...
...retrospect, Duchamp's ready-mades paved the way for the esthetic appreciation of machine-made objects. These off-the-shelf items presage pop artists' use of beer cans and soup cans as objets d'art. His art in boxes anticipated the present-day boxes of Louise Nevelson and Joseph Cornell. Even his dazzling eye bafflers that spun at 33 r.p.m. are the ancestors of today's kinetic op art. And critics are far from convinced that all the ideas have been mined from his Bride, etc., the first industrial collage...
...Duchamp was clearly cut out to be an intellectual in the realm of art. As a young man, he experimented with painting in the manner of Toulouse-Lautrec, the Fauves, and even the cubists, only to abandon each. He rejected the romantic concept of the artist in smudgy smock and flowing cravat, abhorred the veneration of art given to official "masterpieces," decided that "oil painting is old hat and should be discarded forever." As the naturalists of Courbet's day had proved that anything could be a subject for art, Duchamp set out to prove that art could...
...gave up painting," says Duchamp today, "because I felt it was too retinal. It didn't go beyond the eye." A visitor to the U.S. since 1915 and citizen for the past decade, Duchamp and his second wife, Alexina ("Teeny"), nowadays play once a week at New York's London Terrace Chess Club. "Breathing is my prime occupation," he declares with a twinkle. "I am a respirateur." He is content to be a wry and impish commentator, and from his septuagenarian's viewpoint, he sees much to cheer...
Recently a photographer asked Duchamp to sign his autograph book. He explained to the artist that, since those he photographs are his hosts, it was a sort of a guest book in reverse. Duchamp whipped out a pen and, writing backwards, jotted down his signature in a perfect mirror image. For what it is worth, this was also Leonardo da Vinci's favorite device, in his notebooks, for keeping his secrets to himself...