Word: paradox
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Marcel Duchamp lived his life with a touch of magic. He thrived on paradox, and invested contradiction with its own kind of inexplicable logic. His now-legendary Nude Descending a Staircase made him the succes de scandale of Manhattan's 1913 Armory Show. Duchamp responded by giving up painting. Next, he presented an unlikely series of "readymade" objects, including a snow shovel and a urinal, as artistic creations, and saw that idea take root. Then, having shaken the pillars of traditional esthetics, he abandoned art altogether. In 1923, not yet 40, Duchamp settled down to a life of chess...
...whose art is a twisted trail of surprises and double-entendres, the new piece is a triumphant denouement. It wraps all the themes of his previous works into one immensely charming paradox. The viewer enters a small white-walled room that is reminiscent of a grotto. On the far wall, a graceful brick archway frames a wooden door, silvery with age. Near the center of the door are two small peepholes that open onto a beguiling scene. There, lying on a bed of twigs and leaves is a delicate three-dimensional nude, her legs spread provocatively, her left hand holding...
Americans are among the world's most volatile and law-breaking people, yet their government is one of the stablest. For nearly three centuries, this paradox has puzzled the world and, especially in the past few strife-torn years, America itself. Last week a group of historians, social scientists and lawyers told the nation what many Americans had al ready suspected: "We have become a rather bloody-minded people in both action and reaction...
...have mentioned Arab perfidy several times. What makes you think they will keep any signed agreement? Isn't there a paradox here...
...Montreux Palace Hotel. Not that there has been much night for him. "I am the insomniac of universal literature," he cries. "My wet nurse complained. I was always up, smiling and looking around with my bright eyes. I am awakened by my own snore, which is a Nabokovian paradox. Helpful pills do exist, but I am afraid of them. My habitual hallucinations are quite monstrously sufficient, thank Hades. Looking at it objectively, I have never seen a more lucid, more lonely, better balanced mad mind than mine...