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DUCHAMP

                                             January 27, 2009


   Marcel Duchamp:
                                                As quoted by Calvin Tomkins,
   "If you can ironize with no affective       "The Bride and the Bachelors"
   result, with no destructiveness or          (1962) p. 66
   laughter either -- in other words, with
   indifference -- then you have a chance
   for another vista ...  It's not very
   clear, I know, but then I'm not writing
   a book on the science of irony."

                Duchamp often complained of art
                being corrupted by commerce.
                He thought chess was a purer
                activity because "it was in no       Possibly, what he was
                danger of being corrupted by         really talking about
                money".                              is the corruption of
                                                     desire.


   Duchamp at chess: trying to show that
   creative flair could stand up to what
   he called "the memory boys":

   "According to Julien Levy, the art dealer,
   who has been a close friend of Duchamp's
   for many years and an occasional chess
   partner since Duchamp taught him the game,
   'Marcel wanted to show that an artist's
   mind, if it wasn't corrupted by money or
   success, could equal the best in any field.
   He thought that with its sensitivity to
   images and sensations, the artist's mind
   could do as well as the scientific mind
   with it's mathematical memory.  He came
   damn close, too.'"

           -- "The Bride and the Bachelors" (1962),
              Calvin Tomkins, p.52





       Reading this sketch of Duchamp,
       the parallels with John Cage
       seemed very striking -- and             The air (pose?) of wise
       then I realized that John Cage          detached humor, the drive
       is the second sketch in Tomkins         to be truly original,
       book.                                   creating works that
                                               undermine the very idea of
         So, either it's an                    Art.  The (apparent?)
         obvious point, or I                   drive to overcome ego.
         picked up on where
         he was going.



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