Thursday, September 22, 2022

Marcel Duchamp and Marina Abramović

Yesterday, this turned up in one of the textbooks I teach from. It caught my attention because of the name Marcel (cf. my recent dream about Marcelo and Marcela) and because of its resemblance to the "Wheel of Fortune" imagery I had also recently posted about.

Elementary school kids in Taiwan are pretty smart, and when we read, "Later on, artists understood what Duchamp was creating," one of the girls said, "Oh, this reminds me of the story we read last week: The Emperor's New Clothes." Everyone immediately understood what she was implying and laughed. A boy said, "Do you see the art? Yes, yes, I see the art, too." Just as in Andersen's story, children are the first to see through stuff like this.

This led to a general discussion of fake art, and I told them about a piece of "performance art" a few years back which was just the artist sitting at a table, and you could come and sit opposite her and have her stare at you for a while. I didn't mention the name of the artist or the piece because I certainly don't want kids to go home and google Marina Abramović, of "Spirit Cooking" fame.


Marina Abramović is not someone I often think about; she just happened to come up.

That night, I did a bit of perfunctory browsing on /x/. For the past couple of weeks, they've been pushing the idea that Something Big is going to happen on September 24, and last night someone posted about an Abramović exhibit that was opening on that date, implying that this was further evidence of an upcoming "happening."


After seeing that image, I suddenly remembered a part of my Philosophy of Transportation dream that I had forgotten before. The dream began with my entering a scene on a Tarot card (the Moon) and ended with a long winded "review" I had written of Freud's (non-existent) 1930 book The Philosophy of Transportation. Somewhere in the middle, I now remember, there was a statement (I'm not sure if it was my own or Freud's) that the Chariot card of the Tarot represents "understanding" because it is the only card that shows a man standing under something. The cubic chariot, with its four pillars and canopy, bears a certain resemblance to the "tall rectangular copper structures" in the Abramović exhibition.

3 comments:

ben said...

9/24 these numbers appear to add to make another certain number

WanderingGondola said...

Sure wouldn't trust whatever doors Abramovic mucks with... Apparently she was a special guest at the Queen's funeral. Wasn't the only suss thing about that event.

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

@WG

I saw that, too, but it looks like fake news. Can't find it anywhere except on Twitter and in memes.

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