|
Dear Tout-Fait,
Congratulations on
an exciting and generally brilliant issue! As a co-editor of an online
arts journal (PART,
http://web.gsuc.cuny.edu/dsc/part.html)
I am impressed with what you have done.
One quibble — the
Anastasi article about the Large Glass, while intriguing, unfortunately
falls into the same wrongheaded cliches about Katherine Dreier and her
relationship to Duchamp that the general literature has perpetuated
for far too long. My doctoral dissertation on Dreier tries to present
a more even-handed version of their relationship and it is a shame that
an otherwise adventurous article would rely on as flippant a source
as Tomkin's biography and simply repeat its glib assertions.
Moreover, the correspondence
between Dreier and Duchamp does reveal that the Glass was indeed accidentally
broken, unbeknownst to both Duchamp and Dreier, while in storage/transit.
Duchamp was in Europe at the time and in fact had to travel to the States
expressly to repair the Glass.
The relationship to
Jarry still intrigues. I just think it is time that art historians remembered
to not sacrifice fact in the make of a theory.
Best Regards,
Dr. John Angeline
The Graduate Center at City University of New York
|