Page 56 - Studio International - January February 1975

subjectivity of a simple human life, in its Duchamp carefully and painstakingly reserved, whose very rare works have
individuality and privacy. It should also prepared his quite unusual monograph suddenly been published in the weekly
attain a generality, but of a different kind Boite-en-valise. It is a collection of sixty- series Masterpieces of Painting in
than the generalities of scientific eight reproductions of his work packed in Italian, French and English, a
theorems. an attaché case. Boite-en-valise cannot be publication which overnight is to be
Modern society has given a kind of exhibited either; the viewer himself must found at newsagents or in kiosks (at
legal sanction to the notion that go through the collection, and thus 5 francs) between Playboy, the Bible
everything in the world is objective. The the works that originated in the artist's in instalments, and super-king-size
world, in its generality, is seen as a privacy once more return to the privacy cigarettes. 85
closed whole, governed by unalterable of the viewer. In his collction of essays `Le livre
laws. It is a world that is thoroughly Duchamp correctly surmised that there venir' (1959), Maurice Blanchot has a
predetermined and forever finished. must be another road for art to take in very beautiful passage about the 'small
There is no place in it for what can only modern society, a road different from the noise' that art makes in our deafening
be called artistic creation, for the radical one created for it by the bourgeoisie of age:
initiative of the work of art, for its genesis the nineteenth century with its salons, its Nothing serious, nothing loud,
ex nihilo, for its unworldly dimension. museums and its commercial galleries. scarcely a murmur that adds nothing to
The initiating quality of art in this world Boite-en-valise was an attempt to create the great tumult of the cities that we
is a priori impossible, unthinkable, 'mere that approach. believe we suffer from.86
mysticism', as the technical term has it. Only a few decades ago it might have
For the generality of art is the generality 13. The rationalism of the nineteenth seemed that modern art would remain
of subjectivity: the generality of a world century made 'book learning' the only the affair of an insignificant group of
that is not self-sufficient because it is legitimate form of knowledge. Theories outcasts from modern society, a
continually open to that otherness which that continually convert artistic ridiculous eccentricity. But the small
is not the world. experience into conceptual structures are noise of art, this muted 'murmur', is
Art, in so far as it cannot be reduced to merely continuing in this tradition. The unceasing, Blanchot adds, and whoever
something that belongs to the closed same could be said as well of the kind of hears it once will never stop hearing it.
world of objectivity, appears in the journalism that tries to reduce art to Today, the modern artist has become a
modern world as something illegal. forms that fit into a few general trends mythical figure. His exceptional standing
Whereas art has been a natural part of all with names that are easy to remember has been unconsciously accorded a
other civilizations, in our age the artist is and understand. But the popularization redemptive significance.
presented with the problem of defending of modern art has produced results that `He suffered much for us,' Baudelaire
himself before his own society and finding could scarcely have been foreseen. Art is wrote of Poe (and of himself).
a place for his art in it and, moreover, if he treated as a sensation: it is placed against It is very likely that in its enormous
is successful, he has to confront the the background of a rational conception activity, our civilization is on the brink of
further problem of guarding against of the world and points to it as a kind of a catastrophe. It is difficult to believe that
deformations of its meaning that would irregularity. But this simply reinforces it might yet be saved by some revision:
convert its subjectivity into a new kind of the suspicion that modern art, by virtue there is a grave flaw in its very
objectivity. of its very exceptionality, embodies some foundations. The rejection of art from
The complex strategy with which important truth. its structure is an especially marked
Duchamp presented his work during his At the same time there has been an symptom of this.
lifetime had no other purpose than to important change in the structure of Civilizations never die out completely.
protect it from this false kind of journalism itself. It was originally a form Through their crises, they discover
publicity, to keep it from being of literature: in the 'post-Gutenberg' within themselves a hidden potential to
transferred into the world of objectivity. age, with the rapid proliferation of be re-born. It is highly likely that the new
In my article on Duchamp in Opus illustrated magazines and books, film and potentialities of our civilization are
International," I drew attention to the television, journalism has had to adapt outlined precisely beneath the forms of
fact that Duchamp hesitated to exhibit itself to these non-verbal forms of mass modern art. Art is not on the fringe of its
his work, and if he showed it at all, then media. In the nineteenth century, a work time; it is rather hidden at the very
in the most inconspicuous way possible of poetry or art was 'explained', its secret centre of its vitality.
and usually a long time after doing it. His `content' was verbally interpreted. The tragedy of the old civilizations lies
first ready-made, Roue de bicyclette, was Modern art began to arouse disfavour in the fact that in trying to fend off their
not exhibited until forty-one years after precisely because it could not be own death, they reject as well that which
he first put it together. His first one-man `explained' in these terms, because it could save them. By amplifying the
show was held in Chicago the year he lacked 'meaning'. Lévi-Strauss still scarcely perceivable voice of art in the
turned fifty : only nine works were complains about this. But the new media pandemonium of our world, our
exhibited and Duchamp himself did not techniques now give priority to immediate civilization falsifies it, tries to make it
attend the opening. When he had his and largely visual presentation over conform to the world's principles. It
first retrospective in his native land at the verbal interpretation. seems as if, in a panic, we have succumbed
age of eighty, he held it initially outside For modern art this is a revolutionary to an erroneous manie de l'interprétation.
the main art centres, in Rouen, the quiet process. Its chief means of reaching the The fate of Marcel Duchamp's work is an
town of his youth. In the end, he public is no longer the exhibition, nor outstanding example of this. While our
exhibited his Etant dorm& so that it could even verbal descriptions, but rather very world needs more than anything else to
only be looked at through peepholes in a faithful reproductions. Moreover, return to that life-giving subjectivity
firmly closed wooden gate by one person looking at reproductions is not a public, from which and for which a work of art is
at a time, thus making an encounter with social event, but rather the viewer's born, that very subjectivity is taken away
the work a private affair for each viewer. private affair. The work of art is not to be from this work. If it cannot be ignored or
And at the opening exhibition in Peggy admired, but contemplated. This is the ridiculed, then it is explained in terms of
Guggenheim's gallery in New York way in which Duchamp set out : he cared something other than art.
during the war, reproductions of little for exhibiting his works and instead Marcel Duchamp's life and work have a
Duchamp's works could only be looked concerned himself with putting together single meaning. Like Baudelaire and
at through a peephole in the wall.84a His his unusual publication, the Boite-en- Mallarmé, like Satie, like Chlebnikov,
installation of the Surrealist exhibition in valise. René Berger, who devoted much like Joyce, Duchamp, in this difficult
New York in 1942 was symbolic of attention to this penetration of modern time, sacrificed everything that he was
Duchamp's attitude: instead of offering art into the new forms of mass media in to the hard task that was laid before him :
the works to the public for observation, his book Art et communication, is right to he remained nothing but an artist.
he created a network of strings criss- draw attention especially to Duchamp : Perhaps in our time it is the most urgent
crossing the room so that it was Can there be anything odder than the task of
impossible or difficult to get near the case of Marcel Duchamp, an artist so
exhibits. secret, known by only a few admirers
On the other hand, from 1935 on, mostly as fervent as they were
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