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Posts Tagged ‘Armory Show’

Duchamp and the Last Word

Posted in Favorite Things, Opinion, Painting, Quote, tagged Armory Show, Cubism, Dadaism, Marcel Duchamp, Quote on March 2, 2019| 3 Comments »

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The artist performs only one part of the creative process. The onlooker completes it, and it is the onlooker who has the last word.

—Marcel Duchamp

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I can’t say I have always fully appreciated or understood all of the work of Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968). The French born artist is best known for his Nude Descending a Staircase #2 (above) which was the center of the fabled and highly influential Armory Show of 1913. The Cubist painting was considered a shocking departure from the norm, breaking the human form and its motion into abstracted blocks and lines. For an art world that was still basically reeling from the push of Impressionism against traditional academic style painting, it seemed like a gateway to total chaos.

Perhaps it was the notoriety from this show and the effects of World War I that pushed Duchamp even more away from the art establishment of that era. His work became more and more provocative, as he became associated with the Dada movement which rejected all the norms of traditional art. You may know his 1917 sculpture, Fountain, which was a urinal signed with the pseudonym R. Mutt. Shocking the world at the time, it is considered a Dada masterpiece and one of the most influential works of the 20th century.

The thing I find interesting is that after the late 1920’s, Duchamp, still a relatively young man, more or less gave up the making of art and focused on playing chess. He viewed the game as more pure than art in that it was beyond commercialization. He did little art making in the time until his death in 1968.

But while Duchamp, with his contrarian nature, remains an enigmatic character for me, I do heartily agree with his words above. Art is not completely in the making of it. It is the viewer and the impression of the work that they carry with them that completes the artwork. Regardless of how or why the artist created the work, it is the impression that the work makes on the viewer that matters. A deeply personal piece that is that is beautifully crafted may not have the same impact as one that is rough and crudely executed.

That remains the last word of the viewer and what the see and feel in the work.

And that will always be a mysterious and sometimes confounding thing that is beyond the control of the artist.

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The Evolution of Stuart Davis

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, tagged American Modernism, Armory Show, Ashcan School, Modernism, Picasso, Pop Art, Robert Henri, Stuart Davis, Tioga Pennsylvania, Van Gogh on April 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Many of us are familiar with the work of Stuart Davis (1892- 1964), the American Modernist whose paintings presaged the Pop Art of the 60’s. They were bold and colorful abstracted collages that use imagery from the landscape of the popular culture at the time they were created, creating works that immediately evoke a time. When I see them I a transported to the New York or Paris of the 40’s and 50’s, with Jazz and poetry blossoming in the aftermath of a devastating war that really changed our perceptions of the world.

But it is Davis’ early work that always intrigues, particularly a small group that was painted not to far from where I live. There are three landscapes painted just over the state line in rural Tioga, Pennsylvania in 1919 that are very different from the work for which Davis is best known. They show a young artist still working in the style of those artists who inspired him, trying on their style and brushstrokes in an effort to find his own voice.

You can see how he had been affected by seeing the work of Van Gogh and Picasso for the first time at the legendary Armory Show in 1913, where his own work hung among the emerging giants of modern painting. Davis was then a student of Robert Henri and painted in a style associated with the NYC Ashcan school of painters , of which Henri was a leader. These three pieces have thick. expressive stokes of paint and scream of Van Gogh and have few hints at where Davis’ road would eventually lead him.

The pieces are very accomplished and have a certain charm but it is obvious that they are still derivative and that Davis is still in the midst of his evolution from talented mimic to an original voice. To me, they are an interesting insight to how we synthesize our broad spectrum of influences into something truly original. I would be hard-pressed to say that the man who painted these pieces would eventually become a leading light of abstract modernism but they somehow moved him along in his search for his own distinct voice. It only goes to show that we should take in everything that excites us even if it seems out of our normal area of comfort. It may open new and exciting worlds to us that we could never foresee.