odd number

It’s as if they knew I’d just finished reading the book – the first big Duchamp exhibition since 1966 comes to London. The focus on his relationship with Picabia and Man Ray is especially interesting, as Duchamp evidently maintained lifelong friendships with care.

Jonathan Jones writes in the Guardian about Duchamp’s creation of readymades, musing on the role they played, and their validity. The end of the article is interesting, pointing out that all Duchamp’s readymades were manufactured objects, picking up on a comparison with the magazine “Astounding Science Fiction”, and showing that the America of 1915 had all the components of modernity in contrast to the conflicts of Europe. This preoccupation with the future helps explain his easy presence in Gibson’s Neuromancer.

This isn’t a Duchamp blog – I’m just freshly struck by his significance, when he hasn’t really come up that much in the course of my arbitrary collisions with the art world. It may not be surprising to any readers (hello Googlebot! oh, and the Technorati spider too) that I mentioned him in conversation with my life drawing friends the other day. We were discussing the role of work for an artist, particularly for Giacometti, whose intense struggles are quickly visible, and apparently had a very tempestuous nature. His sculptures and drawings are a result of a passionate, life long endeavour. This is in stark contrast to the apparently easy, detached and unprolific productions of Duchamp. Both were key players in the Surrealist movement (perhaps that means little in itself). There’s no particular conclusion here, and I’m sure Duchamp would say that it doesn’t really matter either way.

However we discussed the nature of this work commitment, and whether it was a frustrating torment or a potential pleasure, and ended up instead at the word “rigour”. This implies a commitment, and a discipline which is perhaps imposed willingly by the self, rather than by external forces, perceived or actual. I would extend it to Duchamp’s honesty in not making new work when he felt he had no ideas.

My life drawing teacher says genuine art somehow “rings”, with a truth that becomes more evident as time passes. This tallies with Duchamp’s idea of the “esthetic echo” – there’s a quality that can be tangibly, though inexpressibly, sensed. Even in the choice of a urinal as a piece of art.