Jack Burnham and Duchamp

Burnham, Jack. Beyond Modern Sculpture. George Braziller, 1967

"He brings to light what has always been suspect concerning the artistic use of machines: namely, that it is extremely difficult to produce a physical system which strives towards psychic ambiguity and liberation and, at the same time, remains a devcie conceived upon the precepts of physical restraint (i.e., conceived as a mechanical artifact) -218

"Kinetic Art has been a gradual attempt throughout this century to produce non-representational art using the parameters of real time and motion" -218

"Ideas have a way of seeming unthinkably passe and then, all at once, remarakably relevant, even to the casual observer" -224

"Ever present in Duchamp's efforrts is the intimation that nothing is gained in art without losing something of equal or greater value." -226

"Duchamp maintained that the physical properties of mechanics had been falsified in their practical artistic value. In a word, they were "unartistic" - a strange sobriquet from such an iconoclast. By this, he was alluding to the direct application of machines to art so that the machines could "produce" art - as they might be sent to work producing goods for a manufacturer. The machine, he seemed to imply, was only an object worthy of philosophical speculation, not a philoposher or creator in its own right." -229

"The perhaps it could begin to live, in doubt and indecision, as human beings do" -230

Some further investigations of Duchamp

from: http://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elljwp/duchamp.htm

"One of the features of this work is that it subverts the conditions described by Benjamin in “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Here is a work that simply cannot be reproduced technically. If you want to view it you must go to Philadelphia. The artwork, taken as a whole, is an experience that connot be achieved with out a single and present observer—viewing it is part of the action comprising the work—one looks through two holes and then on through another. Duchamp has argued that the work of art is not performed by the artist alone: “All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.” There is a feeling of paradox in this, however, given that “given” does not exploit the spectator’s creative capacities in any active or direct way but rather positions the spectator, whose “act” the work engages."

The Large Glass:

"Some figures are bumpy and cloudy, and contain the dust left on them during the time which the unfinished work lay dormant, which seems to be an attempt at capturing the dynamic passage of time in a sedate work."