| Virtuoso Illusions: The Artist as Transvestite |
posted: 02-08-10
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A recently opened show at MIT's List Visual Arts Center lays bare the deep associations between cross-dressing and the artistic avant-garde, from classical drama to the (as always somewhat) polymorphous present. Naturally, the labors of Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray to give birth to the transvestite persona Rrose Selavy are fundamental; guest curator Michael Rush provides rare insight into how the act both resonates and defies the profound ambivalence with which the core Surrealist group greeted female artists and then-emerging feminist thought. Others with work on display include Pierre Molinier, Andy Warhol, Manon, Brian O'Doherty and several contemporary videographers, photographers and performance artists. The pioneering career of Claude Cahun (1894-1954), a contemporary and associate of the Surrealists, is represented through curatorial reference, as is that of Jack Smith (1932-1989). (Through April 4. More details at listart.mit.edu.)
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| 40 Birds |
posted: 02-05-10
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Celeste Boursier-Mougenot's now-famous zebra finches
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Celeste Boursier-Mougenot's recent installation at the Barbican Art Gallery, in which 40 small birds were given musical instruments, has both become a Youtube sensation and been compared to the work of Marcel Duchamp. If the comparison is valid, the primary reference is to the chance operations; perhaps an even better link would be to Duchamp's chance-driven musical work.
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| Infrathin & Infrareal: The Latin Legacy of Marcel Duchamp |
By Scott Martin
posted: 02-04-10
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Taking Chilean writer Roberto Bolano's acclaimed novel 2666 as a starting point, the poet Geoffrey Cruickshank-Hagenbuckle hunts the legacy of Marcel Duchamp from readymade through the large glass in a tactical meditation on a few scattered references to the Duchampian category of the "infra-thin." (Naturally, there are several additional references to the "infra-thin" [infra-mince] lurking in unexpected places, but such is the nature of a quality that exists only by example, not as a noun but as an adjective.)
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| Dancing the Staircase |
posted: 02-03-10
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With one foot firmly in the realm of dance and the other arched toward the visual arts, 28-year-old choreographer Jonah Bokaer often looks back to Duchamp -- spiritual godfather of his more immediate mentor Merce Cunningham -- for tactical inspiration. Bokaer has danced with bicycle wheels while the audience threw transit cards at him; other performances have been generated out of chance operations or minutely photographed for publication as flip books.
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| The Assembled Artist |
By Scott Martin
posted: 02-02-10
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Nelly van Moorsel as I.K. Bonset, as photographed by Theo van Doesburg
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The dada family resemblance -- never genetic, always a matter of aspiration and intent -- has been invoked to clarify the ways in which both Marcel Duchamp and Theo van Doesburg treated their artistic personas as performances. Duchamp famously had his Rrose and van Doesburg, best known as the founder of the rigorous Stijl, created "I.K. Bonset," dada poet and provocateur, and others in his efforts to "splinter" himself. (Man Ray, meanwhile, always had "Man Ray.")As in any family, what's interesting is what each artist makes of this or any other common birthright. Having pursued his brothers' passion for art into the avant-garde, Duchamp toyed with both pseudonymous characters and artistic movements but ultimately remained Duchamp, courted by many "isms" but owing no allegiance to any of them; it was his brothers who had to change their names. Van Doesburg appears to have used his characters to negotiate between contradictions, partaking in both the ascetic purity of the neoplastic and the smut of dada. (And Man Ray grew into "Man Ray.")
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