2026.03.16
3D CAD Model
iiq04 iiq05 iiq07 iiq08
2025.03.16
Serendipitous Readymade: As far as Art is concerned, if this doesn't deserve a reenactment, then he doesn't know what does
2023.03.16
16 March 2023 Thursday
From The Discovery of Piranesi's Final Project
I'm definitely not an historian, but I am a successful explorer of history, successful in that my explorations have led to actual historical discoveries. Actual historical discoveries are automatically synonymous with actually making history, are they not? The discoveries in this particular case, Piranesi's final project, are also automatically synonymous with changing history. And, finally(?), actual historical discoveries are automatically synonymous with some temporal control of the narrative.
It's things like that, that I'm now learning about discoveries, and, pleasingly, learning about discoveries comes with a high grade of things-not-known-before.
2022.03.16
a work within This one's for George
2020.03.16
Mary Boone's 180 hours of community service hours 62 63 64 65
2006.03.16
Complex Iconography and Contradictory Content in Architecture
As somewhat of a surprise ending, Helena had Catherine de Ricci reenact her stigmata and ring, and then had Louis I. Kahn reenact his burying of the New Testament in snow.
on Roman bath houses
I spent a lot of the Summer of '72 at Boulevard Pools.
Jim, Bob, John and I would "thumb it" (hitch-hike) up the Roosevelt Boulevard--I think our rolled-up-towels-in-hand got us most of the rides, seeing how we were fine young teenagers on our way to an afternoon of swimming and diving and flirting. For sure the heyday was long gone, but no doubt the best "50 cent" I spent back in those days. Now it seems very lost urban America.
We always hung out on the lawn towards the west end of the 7' olympic pool. I actually found two 4-leaf and one 5-leaf clover there; it was like a little clover mutation spot.
2005.03.16
Re: ID artist - Macabre black nose in tidy whities Unbekannt
I'm pretty sure that's DuShit on a good day.
Re: Larry vs. Damien Unbekannt
Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder.
2000.03.16
urinal in a gallery OR being pissy
If you want to see what a urinal in a gallery looks like, go to
www.quondam.com/1999/7/0613.htm
You will find several images from The Philadelphia Museum of Art's Duchamp gallery--the PMA has the world's foremost Duchamp collection--including, besides a urinal, The Large Glass, several Nude[s] Descending a Staircase, and the "phenomenal" Étant donnés (which I'm very pleased to have taken a picture of with my digital camera).
I last visited this gallery 29 February 2000 (an extra day so I decided to spend in on art). It was a Tuesday, and the museum was not busy with visitors. This trip was a quest--I knew the urinal had a special, albeit hidden meaning, and I was determined to find out what that meaning was. Lucky for me the guard in the Duchamp gallery was a middle-aged man. I figured he was especially frustrated sexually due to standing watch in that particular gallery, what with unrecognizable (and dissatisfying) nudes walking down stairs, and a naked bride that "shatters" all hopes (and dreams) of having sex. [Of course, there is that spread-eagle girl behind the peep holes, but you can't see her face!] Anyway, with a wink and a nudge, I gave the guard a recent copy of Playboy magazine. He smiled and began flipping through the pages feverishly. My plan was working because now I could lift up the urinal to see if there was any message to be found "underneath".
EUREKA!!!!
There it was, a tiny inscription in the Duchamp "font".
"I, Marcel Duchamp, sometime (drag) artist, fully INTEND for this urinal to stand as a monument to all those who gleefully piss their time away wondering about art, particularly art like this. In the future, everyone will piss for fifteen minutes"
I imagine Duchamp felt flushed with success, to say the least.
Stephen Lauf
Re: urinal in a gallery
Marcus wrote:
Steve
just where are you coming from ;-)
remember though that this is a family show!
nice digital camera
Do you think that it was the original urinal, or a copy?
Steve replies:
The obvious (and inescapable) answer is that I'm from Philadelphia (born and raised), and besides Philadelphia's boring/conservative reputation, it does have some real "modern" highlights, not the least of which is its Duchamp collection. Because I'm able to (and indeed do) "visit" with Duchamp often, I've come to realize that so much of his work is all about sex, especially the sex of innuendo and double entendre--Nude Descending a Staircase, The Bride Striped Bare By Her Bachelors Even, Étant donnés, urinal, etc. Thus Duchamp aimed at (family) values, and he pretty much hit right on target (and apparently continues to hit right on target).
Perhaps what I'm learning now is that "conceptual" art is most effective if it manifests double meanings or embodies innuendo. Perhaps (Duchamp means that) contemporary-modern-conceptual art is only good if you "get it".
So is the urinal an original or a copy?--what a great question. I just called a friend that works in the PMA's PR department, and the urinal in Philadelphia is one of a dozen or so that Duchamp signed sometime in the 1960s(?); the 1917 "original" urinal no longer exists.
Re: urinal in a gallery
Hugh asks:
But what if (oh God) these reproduction urinals are not in fact true "readymades" but in fact carefully crafted reproductions of the original readymade that was, one imagines, long out of production since design in sanitary ware had moved on?
Where does that leave us? With something purporting to be a readymade that is actually a hand-made work of art?
which makes Steve ask:
Could it simply be that Duchamp and even his unique "art" cannot escape the varying degrees of separation that always come with reenactments, even crafty and/or dexterous reenactments?
1993.03.16
Taken Literally
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