2025.10.15
 
   
2025.10.15
In Bicycle Wheel, we may recognize a three-dimensional version of Chocolate Grinder, which in turn is reproduced in the Large Glass where, as we have seen, it is the mechanomorphic expression of the Bachelor. Another connection between this Readymade and Chocolate Grinder becomes apparent when we recall that in both cases we are dealing with a "bachelor machine." We recall that the protagonist of the Glass "grinds his chocolate himself"; in the same way, riding a bicycle is a solitary activity in the Bachelor, as is revealed by the sketch To Have the Apprentice in the Sun, included in The Box of 1914.
Arturo Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp (2000), p. 188.
2025.10.15
"The Armory Show wasn't well accounted for in Paris," Duchamp recalled. "I don't think there was even a newspaper account of it, except for short notes." Duchamp himself, isolated in his Neuilly studio did not learn until weeks later that he had become famous in America.
That his fame derived from a single painting must have made it all the more astonishing. What was it about Nude Descending a Staircase, with its somber colors and utter lack of prurient interest, that excited such an enormous furor? "Her room was mobbed everyday," according to one authoritative account. "People formed queues, waiting for thirty, even forty minutes just to stand momentarily in her presence, venting their shocked gasps of disbelief, their rage or their raucous laughter before giving way to the next in line."
. . .
Duchamp always maintained that the reactions to his Nude had to do mainly with its title, and in the United States this certainly seems to have been the case. Nudes weren't supposed to come down stairs in art, and paintings weren't supposed to have their titles written on the canvas, either, and any artist who broke the rules in such an irreverent manner must be kidding, right?
. . .
Although the sales must have done something for Duchamp's ego, they did not change anything so far as he was concerned. "It came from so far away!" as he said, and besides, it was "a local success. I didn't attach mush importance to it."
Calvin Tomkins, Marcel Duchamp: A Biography (1996), pp. 116-118.
2024.10.15
451 Rhawn Gallery
2023.10.15
From The Discovery of Piranesi's Final Project:
15 October 2023 Sunday
Gave future art works a lot more thought today than I have in a long time. It may all start happening again once the "final project" concludes 9 November. In any case, things are already starting to shift.
The closest, geographically, I've yet come to southern Ukraine and Russia is just outside of Konin, Poland, where my father's father is buried. That was May 1990.
Is Piranesi's final project even an issue anymore? I've pretty much 100% made a very plausible case. My explanation as to why Piranesi changed all his already etched ancient circus plans holds together exceptionally well. I wonder how long it will take for that to be admitted to.
2017.10.15
17101503.db GAUA 101 102 104 plans site plan models
1984.10.15
Das Meint Nichts
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