This is a fascinating and beautifully written essay.
The tragedy of Duchamp and others is that they were the ones who relegated art to such a sorry state, not art itself. Art, freed from the constraints of beauty, is purely didactic. And didacticism is better achieved through other media. This turn is likely responsible for the gross politicization of art in the past century, and its resulting dismissal by many. I think many people criticize Duchamp without properly understanding him, though there is a degree to which even the casual observer rightly observes that his readymades are mocking the audience. Observing such art feels like being scolded.
Plato thought that beauty and the Good were intimately connected. If we remove beauty from art, we may be foregoing the good inherent in art as well. Art which is nihilistic can hardly be said to cultivate virtue.
A bit off topic but please check out this website the author of which was a Teaching Professor of brain surgery http://www.artandphysics.com
Among other things it provides a ten page sympathetic appreciation of Duchamps later works including Nude Descending a Staircase, Revolving Glass, The Large Glass or The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, 3 Stoppages etalon all of which in one way or another challenged the then dominant materialist paradigm.
If only the artist had shared his financial windfall with the street vendor, the circle of art and life would be complete. As it is the artist (and the art world) is complicit in the exploitations of the masses, thus increasing the cultural void.
The $6.2 million sale would have gone to the collector; the artist only got money from his initial sale of ~120k that he would have split with his gallery.
Fair, but my comment still holds true. The artist could still share a portion of his $60k windfall. Perhaps only $1k or $10k. Generosity is its own reward.
It could of course be said that serious art became a joke when the "beautiful bombs" Orange Oaf (aka Trumpzilla) appointed himself as the new director of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Especially as the Orange Oaf is quite obviously a religiously and culturally illiterate nihilistic barbarian who does not even have a beautiful molecule in his bone spurs
This is a fascinating and beautifully written essay.
The tragedy of Duchamp and others is that they were the ones who relegated art to such a sorry state, not art itself. Art, freed from the constraints of beauty, is purely didactic. And didacticism is better achieved through other media. This turn is likely responsible for the gross politicization of art in the past century, and its resulting dismissal by many. I think many people criticize Duchamp without properly understanding him, though there is a degree to which even the casual observer rightly observes that his readymades are mocking the audience. Observing such art feels like being scolded.
Plato thought that beauty and the Good were intimately connected. If we remove beauty from art, we may be foregoing the good inherent in art as well. Art which is nihilistic can hardly be said to cultivate virtue.
Yes, I've written about how Duchamp enabled the gross politicization of art: https://quillette.com/2024/09/20/the-totalitarian-artist-politics-vs-beauty/
A bit off topic but please check out this website the author of which was a Teaching Professor of brain surgery http://www.artandphysics.com
Among other things it provides a ten page sympathetic appreciation of Duchamps later works including Nude Descending a Staircase, Revolving Glass, The Large Glass or The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, 3 Stoppages etalon all of which in one way or another challenged the then dominant materialist paradigm.
If only the artist had shared his financial windfall with the street vendor, the circle of art and life would be complete. As it is the artist (and the art world) is complicit in the exploitations of the masses, thus increasing the cultural void.
The $6.2 million sale would have gone to the collector; the artist only got money from his initial sale of ~120k that he would have split with his gallery.
Fair, but my comment still holds true. The artist could still share a portion of his $60k windfall. Perhaps only $1k or $10k. Generosity is its own reward.
It could of course be said that serious art became a joke when the "beautiful bombs" Orange Oaf (aka Trumpzilla) appointed himself as the new director of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Especially as the Orange Oaf is quite obviously a religiously and culturally illiterate nihilistic barbarian who does not even have a beautiful molecule in his bone spurs