NUDE DESCENDING THE PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM:

...The latter is, after all, a disface area would be transparently in- subsequently famous items as In Ad- tinctly au courant building-lots of visible...

...I recently saw in a very chic range from blasphemy to silliness...

...And it was the inactivity reason than the fact that there really we can begin...

...He gives us life which the bourgeois, museum-oribeauties of impressionism, to modern things we cannot view...

...Beside the not-made and moved on from Philadelphia to the vure to show what is not...

...post-painterly abstraction which seems things like urinals and snow shovels He admired with nostalgia the religious both in style and size to be destined that drag their real life with them...

...The Philadelphia Muthe glass-but it is mostly glass...

...The ideas in "The in Fairmount Park, it would be a wonLisa but a postcard litho of the same Green Box" are mere fragments which derful place in which to roller skate...

...To sistently for a period of more than fifty Marcel Duchamp must be the descrip- say that Duchamp "worked" on this years...

...champ produced almost - almost - bored" over it seems most inappropri- ("Marcel Duchamp or the Castle of nothing between the super-notorious ate to the intermittent attention which Purity," Paz's slim essay on Duchamp "Nude Descending a Staircase" of the it received and to an artist who pre- is an unusually insightful and profound Armoury show in 1913 and his death ferred to call himself un respirateur...

...What Hindu temple, the writing table of a Duchamp is the grand heresiarch of he produced when collected cannot Chinese scholar...

...Rrose- of the objects is "The Bride Stripped the modern sense of the word...

...Mr...

...rect, again...

...Nevertheless, it was in this preparing in deepest secrecy for twenty DENNIS O'BRIEN, a frequent contributor to period of apparent inactivity that Da- years a monumental object entitled these pages, is Dean of Middlebury College in Vermont...

...And here in the corStaircase" resist being seen, remaining elevate the status of artists because of ner of this archetypically ornate traditransparent, only to be peeped at, disegno, grazia, iudizio and decoro...

...And, depending Despite the tasteful mounting they re- relation between art and life...

...What was once thought porno- a modern edition...

...Museums are really be seen, the works when seen bulk of the Philadelphia Museum's after all "temples of culture" for many cannot be contained in the "retinal" collection was made to be seen any who find the other churches full of act, they keep escaping into their dubimore than the urinal was made to be distasteful plaster saints and plastic ser- ous past, low taste, jumbles of ideas seen...

...The figure so that they can't be seen...

...And neither should the painting is not that it uses paints and As Octavio Paz remarks: "Duchamp Van der Weyden altar piece or the appeals to the eye, it is that it accepts is against the Museum, not against the Bruges Madonna...

...Andy War- exhibit it was necessary to wander purchased in Spain...

...Mutt...

...Having circled round wall with a hole in it, through the hole temporary art world is crowded with a Van der Weyden "Christ on the a female figure in an uncompromisingly the unseen and unseeable "art" ob- Cross" and through galleries of swimerotic pose whose head is invisible be- jects...

...To museums inof the thing, I am not sure that a high- served droppings of a guinea pig's cage deed...

...It is a film about the ways to in a capitalist society-the alienated artist trying to in which history raises the level of consciousness and create a work perfect in itself, a work that reflects only makes revolution inevitable...

...W I asked the generous editors ~'~' of Commonweal whether they would care to have a review of the NUDE DESCENDING Marcel Duchamp show then on view THE PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM at the Philadelphia Museum, I received a "yes" of notably measured enthusiasm -with the admonition to remember that DENNIS O'BRIEN not many of the readers of this periodical would be likely to see the show...

...Isn't that something in the that it would be technically possible view...

...such matters...

...5 April 1974: 112...

...Octavio Paz isn't very much to see at all...

...chessmen, pieces of glass, notes, erotMuseum...

...Modern art until the very -on the beliefs and deeds that made his mind...

...to produce one...

...have astonished conIndeed, not seen and less seen of or by termittently from 1913 to 1923...

...So, the two major Du- the Bachelors...

...tional museum are all these readyCommonweal: 111 made, barely-made, unseen, unseeable But Duchamp is not a prophet or theo- life of art finally subverts the institution and unspeakable objects...

...as accompaniment to this commentary...

...Art works of art-a difficult gesture, one jects which make up a museum collec- as religion," Duchamp said to an inter- must be the creator of "Nude Detion...

...In keeping with the unseeable as Edward Lucie-Smith points out, the a cabled version of the Parthenon transcharacter of Duchamp's basic artistic notion of an avant-garde assumes that lated into ten acres of pure Minnesota gesture, "Given" can only be viewed eventually taste will catch up, the idea dolomite, that is the Philadelphia Muthrough two tiny peepholes in a weath- of "underground" suggests a permanent seum...

...which was influential...

...I am not sure graphically unseeable is very much on longa...

...with a penciled mustache...

...The better known ing less than the negation of work in cel Duchamp/Rrose Selavy...

...likely to be at the Modern in New proved the whole idea) most of the sur- This gesture had been preceded by such York...

...Note: not the ficial waterfall effect created by a mov- will all be destroyed immediately any- urinal, the original is lost and this is ing light...

...It is a marvelous gesture for the Holy Mother, Duchamp suggests "the Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even" Philadelphians to harbor this French bride stripped bare by her bachelors, is not only unseen in the sense that the saboteur...

...If art art market have followed in perfect also refuse the museum-mortician's and life are not properly related today parallel a life for art objects confined smothering politeness...

...This object is now per- blocking vision, resisting visual repro- Well, what are we supposed to make manently housed with most of the Du- duction, being pornographic enough to of a collection of shovels, postcards, champ materials in the Philadelphia suggest they ought not to be seen...

...This is Duchamp's way of saying that as the altarpiece existed in a Ah, sprouter, greenly inching, strongly slight, life of unseen ideas, so with the glass...

...Insofar as visible, there is one more facet of Du- seum-goer...

...Accordingly, Lucia is also the impeccable sensibilities of the artist in his isolation...

...Of course it is a Paz is correct, and he is, that Du- champ which must be noted before I joke but not idle jest...

...activity of the later years turned out vantaged that Commonweal is not fis- After the "Large Glass," Duchamp to be but another irony from the sucally up to a four-page color-spread evidently stopped making altogether ex- preme ironist of twentieth century art...

...We are all used to seeing beauminded periodical would care to show appropriately entitled "The Bride and tiful and crafted objects in museums...

...Almost nothing in the the religion of culture...

...When I saw the show in Phila- Anyone reasonably familiar with revival building imaginable...

...No, that on whether you prefer Marx right side fuse to be objects of art just as the is not the gesture for the artist which up or on his head, the economics of the crucifix in the medieval gallery should is what Duchamp finally remains...

...if you wrap arrived at the Duchamp show and lies on a bed of real twigs, holding on something large enough like an Austra- there, exhibited with all the care for high a gas lamp in her left hand, in lian cliff you can't even see the whole space and lighting reserved to a Bruges the backround is a cheap postcard- wrapping and if you do it where the Madonna were the hat rack, the shovel, style painted background with an arti- wind currents are sufficiently vicious it the urinal and so on...

...in seeing that his works were preserved One does not save life through art, Duchamp often stated his opposition and collected...

...These "works" have been enor- Duchamp...

...It produces everything from the on view in a museum...

...In a sense Apollinaire may recent past has been defined by an as- the seen significant...

...Art for Cathedral...

...against the `collection,' not the Duchamp exhibit may well come, art's sake in the nineteenth and twen- against an art which is founded on as it came for me, after leaving the tieth century has made the artist a life...

...No photograph exists of this how...

...it is a comment on the fact that one doesn't go to see a Duchamp exhibit, if for no other Imagine to yourself a blank page and certain artists...

...he gives us ented, art-for-art's-sake culture suggests...

...No, that is not a negative comment on the man who has been called the Grand- Appealing to minds, not eyes dada of modern art...

...Not exactly what Vasari They should be colorful, rich, well champ works after "Nude Descending a had in mind when he attempted to made, well seen...

...I would definitely recommately six feet by eight feet and if it artistic scandal by submitting to the mend missing it at MOMA...

...The comic, weren't for the fact that at one stage Society of Independent Artists for ex- ironic and blasphemous overtones of it was accidently smashed to bits and hibition a urinal, lying demurely on its the Duchamp exhibit were inescapable had to be glued back together (by the back with the title "Fountain" and in Philadelphia in a way they are not artist himself who thought it much im- signed by the artist, one "R...

...C'est Bare by her Bachelors, Even" or "The formations that Picasso's painting has la vie was a Duchampian pseudonym...

...Then what the barely-made, the Duchamp show Museum of Modern Art and will conthere is, remains largely unseeable...

...that Apollinaire was a bit 'lightheaded a period when art was intended only Past art has lived on what was unseen and would say anything that came into to be seen...

...outrageously elaborated Greco-Roman way...

...In contrast, the objects in life of dealing and doing that the mu- this remark and he steadfastly averred the Museum of Modern Art come from seum reduces to merely being seen...

...If the film represents the Cuban revolutionary of tempers his art to his responsibilities...

...So much for the fact that Duchamp ica-(and a large number of pre-1913 Must I retract my promise that illus- makes a reputation by not making or painting in various styles...

...activity can prove so effective...

...If one can imagine lighted...

...Certainly Dusumed aesthetic of art for the sake of minds us that art lives beyond what is champ disliked the whole divorce from art...

...To tell the truth, Duchamp did in writes: "Perhaps the two painters who The last (of few) exhibits of Du- fact definitively incomplete (his ter- have had the greatest influence on our champ's works in America prior to his minology) two major objects after century are Pablo Picasso and Marcel death was at the Cordier and Ekstrom 1913...

...The former by his works...

...and given the eroticism gallery in Montreal the plastically pre- Blasphemy to what...

...painters of the Renaissance...

...Yet this inThus, dear reader, do not feel disad- meticulous craftsman...

...trying to reach What is at first hard to fathom about this film is that an understanding whereby she can bear to live with him...

...The trouble with retinal museums is not a barbarian gesture...

...made from the vantage point provided by the level of Mr...

...These are JOHN FANDEL the ideas which accompany the seen ADDRESS object...

...the problem is not a problem of art to the gallery dealer and the museum Duchamp was extremely interested and the artist, it is a problem of life...

...cept for some paper cut-outs, and oc- Following his death, it was revealed casional metaphysical and erotic prac- that Duchamp and his wife had been tical jokes...

...commentary on the artist and on art in a Paris studio fifty-five years later...

...also comprises "the ready-made...

...Christo wraps public monuments ming impressionist color, one finally cause of the angle of vision...

...Folding Item (1916)-an Underwood seum on the other hand is the most "Given" is unseen in yet another typewriter cover...

...Solas has indeed been guided by such historical conIn the end, then, Lucia has a very large and extraor- siderations...

...There is an intricately drafted vance of a Broken Arm (1915)-a glass-and it is full of those strange mechanic-organic design which consti- snow shovel, Bottlerack (1914)-a objects which we all recognize as distutes the bride and her bachelors on rack for drying wine bottles, Traveler's tinctly modern...

...The con- the history of art...

...So, Duchamp re- have hit upon a truth...

...Why, yes...

...Ars brevis, vita scene behind the door...

...In clude at the Art Institute of Chicago in "The Bride" is a "large glass," approxi- 1917, Duchamp created yet another late spring...

...For all that, he was an extraordinarily in the twentieth century...

...The Bride tion...

...But restore for museum life alone...

...curator...

...intricate shapes swim in spaces of invisible glass, there is also a box of notes 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 000 that are supposed to be riffled through while looking at the work...

...actual exhibit and wandering the halls genius, a prophet, a saint-Duchamp Duchamp actively non-produced given over to the other displaced ob- preferred to be merely a breather...

...Duchamp's inactivity is no less tive title of any exhibit because Du- project, "busied himself" at it, "la- astonishing and, in its way, fruitful...

...Duchamp was often asked about functioned...

...Duchamp would have been de- artists...

...You show me all I ought to know, and might...

...What one sees hol's soup cans obviously follow the through yards of dolomite and much of through the peephole is an actual brick tradition of the ready-made...

...The real effect of that as a completed gesture...

...These ob- only suggest that more is needed than Contemplating the destruction of art jects shouldn't be in a museum...

...Cor- mtets the eye...

...Of course, they were seen but mons...

...the Gallery in New York and was called mously influential but they also count latter by a single work which is nothNot Seen and/ or Less Seen of/by Mar- as part of the unseen...

...champ's non-work is in a sense his try to puzzle out the moral of this The Duchamp exhibit has now important contribution, I need no gra- curious tale...

...Is it all an trations are out of order for a review by crafting what is only marginally elaborate joke on Vasari and the muof Duchamp...

...Here is an altar screen, there a viewer, "-it is not even as good as scending a Staircase" before all this infamily portrait, there a piece of a God...

...Large Glass" on which he "acted" in- gone through...

...But can a museum be more than and erotic fantasy...

...It is the proper loca- nas, and when Art offers herself as the mind, not to the eye...

...Twening to the fore with Courbet, He could and donated it all permanently tieth century life creates no Madonwanted a painting which appealed to to Philadelphia...

...The distinction is important: museum design...

...In order to get to the Duchamp erbeaten rustic door which Duchamp subversive position for art...

...champ became a virtual cult hero for "Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illu5 April 1974: 110 minating Gas...

...arroser: to water, spray, baste...

...1895 as a naked black warrior, it is only because that is COLIN L. WESTERBECK, JR...

...Apollinaire said what was important about them was a graceful decorous mausoleum...

...Just the thing-if ever there was an exhibition for not seeing this is it...

...If his vision of the invisible even...

...Not the Mona logian with a system...

...One of the delphia it was definitely unseen since contemporary art can certainly see the architects for the edifice telegraphed it is tucked away in an alcove and very traces of Duchamp in the work of from Greece at one stage in the planfew people seemed to realize it even various, underground and avant-garde ning: "Have seen Parthenon approve existed...

...He is not the filmmaker we are accustomed dinary historical perspective...

...The long ago that Duchamp would restore what was unseen-a life, a worship, collection's totems and pots, paintings the proper relation between art and a family pride in which they lived and and porcelain all emerged from a total life...

...His friends, the Arens- life must save itself and then find an to "retinal painting" which he saw com- bergs, dutifully bought up what they art to proclaim that salvation...

...Solas sees what he is doing as something that has a consciousness that exists in each historical epoch it deals wider responsibility to a whole national history, and he with...

...Not entirely...

...The transfr...