DUCHAMP IS THE ORACLE

I keep coming back to Duchamp. Even as my reading and research continues to widen, Duchamp is the oracle.

For example, I was re-skimming Tomkin’s absolutely excellent biography on Duchamp. I opened the book to a random page, and this quote sat there, screaming to me, I tell you, right there on the page:

“Anything does go in art, as Duchamp had demonstrated with the readymades, but only when art is approached in the way he approached it: not as self-expression or therapy or social protest or any other of the uses to which it is regularly subjected, but as the free activity of a rigorous and adventuring mind.” Tomkins.

That’s all Transparent Drawing and these pages say. What, you’re still putting marks on paper to express your feelings? You are still thinking of this as a way of expressing yourself? You’re still looking at this as art? Duchamp saw thru that fallacy a half century ago. And the result was the freedom to pursue knowledge with your inquisitive mind.

“I was really trying to invent, instead of merely expressing myself.” Duchamp. Tomkins.

Invention. When we apply the rigors of our mind to the marks that we put on our papers, we are inventing. In our case we are inventing forms. Holistic forms. Previously unimaginable forms. What we do here is not art. Why is it not art? Because we are not feebly and tritely expressing mere feelings.

One of my favorites in these pages is titled Smells Like Malic Moulds. That page also gives a brushing inclusion of Large Glass. Duchamp has been referred to in these pages many times.

The other key word is freedom, or free activity. Released from the strictures of feelings and representation, we are free to use the power of our intellect to generate forms. If you type freedom into the search box above, many pages will come up. Two that I think are important include my comments in the Interview as well as the page Draw Like Basquiat.

If you find yourself saying, well, I still want to “do art.” Ok, but don’t you want to do this with as much freedom as possible? Don’t you want to widen your bandwidth with holistic form as you seek your precious self expression?

NOTES ON THE DRAWING

Source Images used for the drawing at the top, from left to right:
-Jones, Grammar of Ornament, p 14
-Desargues, La Pratiqve, p 109
-Haeckel, Kunstformen-der-natur, p 27
-Jones, Grammar of Ornament, p 34.

Assembly includes Line Without Tone, Krylon Transparency, Acrylic Wash.

1. Tomkins, Calvin. Duchamp. Holt and Company: New York. 1996.