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| Marcel Duchamp photographed by man ray |
Within this schematic and utterly mechanical operation, Duchamp envisioned frustrating sexual drama, an endless, self-generating cycle of lust perpetually doomed to frustration. The Bride’s ‘blank desire (with a touch of malice)’ activates the subservient Bachelors. The sparks from her desire-magneto set up the two-stroke internal combustion process that powers her magical blossoming.
She accepts the Bachelors’ splashes, then blossoms, entering the last state before fulfillment.
But fulfillment never comes; she remains ‘forever lovely and unravished, eternally between desire and possession.’
2 comments:
I appreciate your interest in art. I hope someday to see this in the Philadelphia Musem of Art where it is part of the collection.
How tragic, how poignant, how profoundly frustrating:
"But fulfillment never comes; she remains ‘forever lovely and unravished, eternally between desire and possession.’"
It is reminiscent of the punishment of Tantalus, except the bridegrooms appear not to have committed any of the heinous acts attributed to Tantalus, but only to be victims of their own timidity, their own inability or unwillingness to act.
I have been obsessed with Duchamp since I was 17. His concepts have been a constant source inspiration in myown art, but as a source of reference as to the evolution of ideas and sort of a creative diving board he is one of the movers of our modern consciousness.
He was always more dada than dada, more surreal than surreal....
I visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art just to experience seeing the work in person. Last summer, I was in the MOMA in NYC and to see his work in the collection there was like re encountering an old friend.
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