Page 15 - Studio International - February 1974

Ivan Karp on mind and modern French is something that I was a heroic act. Why shouldn't he play chess ?
am not involved in. Yet it seemed wrong somehow; one wanted
Marcel Duchamp I prefer the freshness or innocent buoyancy more from him somehow, wanted a continuous
of American art. And I have grown up with it. thread, wanted him to produce or participate

It is a kind of prejudice that I hold most dear to in some way. There is lots of ambivalence here,
me. Though I certainly involve myself in the art I admit.
Ivan Karp was interviewed by Moira Roth in of the distant past, I don't like post-war French When did people really start talking about him ?
February 1973. The Duchamp retrospective is at art at all. I don't like the power of Cubism over I think the great burgeoning of discussion
the Museum of Modern Art, New York during world painting. Though I can respect the about him occurred in the middle to late 6os.
February. It opens in Chicago in March. achievement of Cubism and I can appreciate its The good art historians and critics found a
startling importance in world art, I thought it linkage, a connective tissue to certain American
1K: Duchamp is a very remote person for me. I perhaps an anchor or a crutch, more an anchor art. The idea of Duchamp became imposing
relate better to the objects than to the man. I than a crutch for abstract art generally, and I during the 6os; it became a whispered name by
don't know the man. I can't feel warm to him, thought it had become a burden and that the middle 6os. Then he became like the
somehow. I never understood Duchamp's American art was heroic because it broke away Godhead, for some artists. I mean they talked
character or personality. He seemed mysterious, from Cubism . about him that way, and I resented that. I
unavailable, and not especially attractive to me. So, I guess consciously or unconsciously, I wanted their inspiration to be different, to be
I never participated in social occasions where he associated Duchamp with the idea of Frenchness spontaneous, though no art can be totally
was likely to be. I didn't participate in in art. When I really began to dwell on spontaneous.
conversations that concerned his importance. I Duchamp's work and when I began to think of
didn't especially react to what I read of him. I the implications of his art, then I began to think
never myself supported the idea of his power, that he was more an international figure. And
though not with any conscious effort to demean that his art was not distinctively French nor was
him in any way. I would ask myself: Who is he ? his mind distinctly French. It was a
Why is he there ? What does he do for us ? Does cosmopolitan mind and startlingly innovative. I
he really do what they claim he does ? I didn't would have preferred that he be a full American
know. I wondered what the myth was about. somehow, although he lived here among us, and
Was it a solid, established fact or not ? And then apparently enjoyed being here, as he spoke and
there were the objects that were, at their best, wrote homages to our landscape and Definition and theory
remarkable. It's the attitude that comes off the environment. I guess I wanted to claim him of the current
objects that I most admire, the simple, totally or not even know about him.
straightforward, blunt, unadorned objects, I wonder how many artists are actually avant garde:
things without an attitude, without refinement directly responsive to particular things he made. materialist/structural
of feeling, without poetic undertones, without I don't know how conscious or how mentally
ornamentation, without elaboration, without equipped the generation of American artists film
attitude, without posture. The thing itself. And that I know were able to assimilate Duchamp's
that is what I admire in American art right now. art.
We see some things like that now — the thing Did they talk about it at the time ? or in The avant garde is a didactic avant garde.
itself. Merciless, you know. And I suppose retrospect ? This is the historical function of all avant-garde
maybe I resented Duchamp for having done It always seemed to me they, talked of it movements, whether those involved know it or
that. Because we had him in our midst. I as if they'd just discovered it. I grew up with not. A re-educative process is at work from the
suppose that's something. He came here to us. some of the artists who are acclaimed for moment a creative act that differs formally from
I think he was attracted to those qualities that their individualism, and then again for their its predecessors is attempted. By 'didactic' I do
I thought he couldn't understand. connection with Duchamp. During my not mean simply a teaching of facts or a handing
MR: You mean the bluntness ? formative relationship with these artists, I don't down of a lesson. Il faut etre absolument
The bluntness, yes, that I felt his origins remember any references to Duchamp. It seems moderne (Rimbaud). This notion has been
wouldn't allow him to know. Maybe he was to have come rather recently; after the critics maligned rightly because it has meant that every
attracted to what he called 14th Street: 14th noticed a relation. This would be particularly new gimmick is exploitable, turning art into
Street is all of that. That was possibly the Johns and Rauschenberg. Now Johns and consumerism and sensationalism into
doorway to a kind of amity with him for me, you Rauschenberg are both very alert and agile- aesthetics. But the basic meaning holds
know, the fact that he acclaimed 14th Street. minded. They wouldn't be the personification nevertheless; originality is necessary for any
That was something like a clue. I never found of so-called innocent American artists without work that breaks radically with the past;
out more than that somehow. That maybe is a conscious roots; they do have conscious roots breaking the technique of the status quo is
kind of laziness on my part. And then I think I and they know their art history. Yet when I doing just that. An example: were narrative not
resented some of the artists who did acclaim knew their painting, I couldn't connect them inherently authoritarian and manipulative,
him, in their pronouncing their feelings. Better distinctly with Duchamp. I think they looked on and therefore reactionary and detrimental to a
left unsaid, I felt. Let it be there, this rock, this Duchamp with the same kind of regard that I (film) culture, it would still, based purely on its
myth, whatever it is. Don't talk about it, not am expressing here; a distant kind of historicity, be in need of overhauling.
because it is holy, just don't talk about it. astonishment, caution, disbelief, amusement, Whether this overhauling takes the form of the
I met Duchamp on two or three occasions but entertainment and uncertainty. pseudo narratives of Robbe Grillet's appalling
I always felt very alien from him; the way I Anyhow, I know that he turned to playing films, or whether narrative structure is actually
always felt very alien abo,ut French art. French chess and for us corporeal creatures this seemed not used at all, is a point worth dealing with
art always seemed to be outside my like a waste of life somehow. Now probably it (elsewhere). I feel it is an idealistic illusion to
consciousness. I associated him in that way with isn't; probably it is a perfectly legitimate believe that traditional structures can be
French art. The only French art I could warm activity. I mean one condemns the few artists broken down using their own devices. An essay
up to was that which was quite un-French, like around who keep pushing something that they is urgently needed on the theme of narrative
Van Gogh. Cubism itself is very far from my have depleted, so in a sense, maybe Duchamp's versus non-narrative form, and the
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