2005.10.03 15:41
Re: Jean-Pierre Gauthier
Did anyone do anything special yesterday the 37th anniversary of Marcel Duchamp's death? You think anyone will bid on the sheet of Duchamp news clippings souvenir from the 1973 Duchamp exhibition that will be up for auction at eBay soon? And how about Rimanelli in "Hate Speech" "Coming upon a quondam friend of colleague..." Does Rimanelli have experience himself when it comes to coming upon a quondam friend or colleague? I'd hate to think not. Anyone know what 2005 book is partially dedicated '4. my quondam friends'? Hint: what do QBVS and VSBA have in common? So the question so the answer maybe?
Modern art always "projects itself into a twilight zone where no values are fixed," he [Leo Steinberg] said. "It is always born in anxiety." Not only that, he said, it is the function of really valuable new Modern art to "transmit this anxiety to the spectator," so that when he looks at it, he is thrown into "a genuine existential predicament." This is basically Greenberg's line, of course—"all profoundly original art looks ugly at first"—but Steinberg made the feeling seem deeper (and a bit more refined). The clincher was Steinberg's own confession of how he had first disliked [Jasper] Johns's work. He had resisted it. He had fought to cling to his old values—and then realized he was wrong. This filtered down as a kind of Turbulence Theorem. If a work of art or a new style disturbed you, it was probably good work. If you hated it—it was probably great.
—Tom Wolfe, The Painted Word
I reread all of The Painted Word in the wee hours of 1 October 2005. Does Duchamp rest in peace flat on his back?
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