Will Gompertz - Black bread and the white race - LiveJournal. Incomprehensible art

Do you remember in the film 1+1 there is a dialogue between the two main characters about contemporary art. When Driss's assistant can't understand how you can buy a white canvas with a red spot for 30 thousand dollars.

And how many such conversations can you hear among people who are unfamiliar with art: “yes, my three-year-old child draws no worse than artist N, who sells his daub for several thousand dollars.”

So who is right? How to understand why this or that work is called art and why it costs such fabulous money?

A book with a simple title: “Incomprehensible Art” can help with this.

Will Gompertz is not just an art lover, but also the BBC's arts editor. Previously worked at the Tate Gallery for over 7 years. By the way, the most visited and influential museum of modern art.

This book will be your guide to the world of contemporary art. I have long wanted to study art, but I couldn’t understand where to start studying art and how to understand what a movement like modernism means and how it differs from postmodernism.

For a long time I was looking for a book that could explain all this to me in an accessible language. And then she was found.

The book's cover references Andy Warhol's Campbell's Tomato Soup.

Back in the 19th century, the art world was relatively calm. The artists painted chubby angels and carefully checked every brush stroke. And then the impressionists came and ruined everything for them.

Contemporary art has made such a big leap in its development that for most people the words “contemporary art” are associated with something very complex and not for everyone.

Looking into a gallery of contemporary art, a person involuntarily wonders: isn’t he a fool if he doesn’t understand what is depicted in the picture, or maybe the art industry is simply fooling people and siphoning multimillion-dollar sums out of dupes?

When Claude Monet (Impressionist) painted "Impression" in 1872, Le Charivari magazine critic Louis Leroy said:

Wallpaper, and those would look more finished than this “Impression”

It was Leroy who called the new movement impressionism.

Exactly 100 years later, the Tate Gallery buys the sculpture "Equivalent VIII" for more than 2 thousand pounds. The sculpture is created from ordinary bricks that any mason could lay.

After 30 years, the Tate Gallery again shocks people and buys a line of people (a piece of paper on which the idea of a Slovak artist was outlined).

And this is art? Yes. If you want to know why, take a look at the book "Incomprehensible Art".

The book is written in clear language. Clear and logical.

You will find out why you cannot repeat Malevich’s black square, and how it happened that an ordinary urinal is considered the main masterpiece of the 20th century.

The book tells about art from the mid-19th century to the present day.

The book contains illustrations.

In the book you will not get a complete story about artists and movements. Only the most famous artists, architects, sculptors, who were the founders of these movements, are gathered here.

I can call this book a primer on contemporary art. After it, you can head on to a further journey through art.

You will be able to distinguish Monet from Manet. Why Duchamp's "Fountain" is important for modern art. Distinguish synthetic cubism from analytical. Understand the difference between modernism and postmodernism.

The book is ideal for beginners. A sophisticated person of art is unlikely to find anything interesting for himself. But it will be useful for beginners.

Will Gompertz

Incomprehensible art. From Monet to Banksy

To my wife Kate and children Arthur, Ned, Mary and George

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?

150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye

First published in Great Britain in the English language by Penguin Books Ltd. This edition published by arrangement with Penguin Books Ltd. and Andrew Numberg Literary Agency

Translation from English by Irina Litvinova

Preface

There are many marvelous works of art history, from Ernst Gombrich's classic History of Art to Robert Hughes's pugnacious and insightful The Shock of Novelty (Hughes covered only modern art, while Gombrich went all in, though he ran out of steam around 1970) ). I'm not going to compete with such authorities - why should I! – but I want to offer something different: my own educational, fun and easy-to-read book, covering the chronological history of modern art (from the Impressionists to the present day), but presented from the point of view of today. To, say, explain why a movement such as constructivism, which arose back in 1915, is still relevant, how the totality of artistic, political, technological and philosophical circumstances that gave rise to it determined the future of art and our society - and at the same time It’s time to look with fresh eyes at what preceded this direction.

My knowledge, with which I took on this task, clearly lacks academic excellence, and the practical side is not so great: a four-year-old child draws better than me. All hope lies in my abilities as a journalist and radio host. As the great late David Foster Wallace said in his essays, popularization is a service in which a person of some intelligence is given time and space to delve into things for the benefit of other people who have better things to do. In addition, my advantage is experience; it’s not for nothing that I worked for so many years in the strange and fascinating world of contemporary art.

In the seven years that I have been director of the Tate Gallery, I have been able to visit both the world's greatest museums and lesser-known collections off the beaten path. I visited artists' homes, carefully studied rich private collections and observed multimillion-dollar auctions of contemporary art. I plunged into it headlong. When I started, I didn’t know anything; Now I know something. Of course, there is still a lot to learn, but I hope that the little that I managed to absorb (and retain) will at least help you appreciate and understand contemporary art. And this, as I am convinced, is one of the greatest pleasures in life.

Introduction

Incomprehensible art

In 1972, the Tate Gallery in London acquired the sculpture “Equivalent VIII” by the American minimalist Carl Andre. Created in 1966, it consists of 120 firebricks that, if you follow the artist's instructions, can be stacked into eight different shapes of equal volume (hence the name "Equivalent VIII"). Exhibited in the gallery in the mid-1970s, the composition was a parallelogram two bricks deep.

There was nothing special about these bricks - anyone could buy exactly the same ones for a few pence apiece. But the Tate paid over two thousand pounds for them. The English press went wild. “They are wasting national finances on a pile of bricks!” - the newspapers screamed. Even a highly intelligent art journal The Burlington Magazine wondered: “Has Tate gone crazy?” Everyone wanted to know why Tate was so recklessly spending public money on something that “any mason could do.”

“Baby, don’t say ‘derivative’ is a bad word!”

Another three decades passed, and Tate again spent British taxpayers' money on an unusual piece of art. This time she decided to buy the people's line. However, this is not entirely true. Not the people themselves - that's against the law these days - but just the queue. Or, more precisely, a piece of paper on which the Slovak artist Roman Ondak outlined his idea. His plan was to hire several actors and line them up in front of a locked door. After the arrangement, or, in the language of gallerists and artists, “installation,” the actors had to turn their gaze to the door and freeze in a pose of humble expectation. It was hoped that this would intrigue passers-by, who would either join the queue (this is usually what happens) or pass by, wrinkling their brows in confusion and trying to understand what artistic meaning they had missed.

The idea is funny, but is it art? If a mason can create an analogue of Carl Andre's "Equivalent VIII", then Ondak's fake turn could well be considered an eccentric prank in the spirit of stupid pranks. In theory, the press should have gone into complete hysteria in this case.

But the matter was limited to dissatisfied grumbling: no criticism, no indignation, not even ambiguous headlines from the wittiest members of the tabloid community - absolutely nothing! The only response to the deal was a couple of approving lines in a respectable magazine, in the section on events in the art world. So what happened during these thirty years? What has changed? Why did advanced contemporary art, which at first seemed like a stupid joke, begin to be perceived not only with respect, but with reverence?

Money played an important role here. Over the past decades, huge amounts of despicable metal have been poured into the art world. Government funds were spent in generous streams on the “ennoblement” of old museums and the creation of new ones. The collapse of communism and the abandonment of state intervention in the market economy (and, as a result, globalization) led to an increase in the population of multimillionaires, for whom the acquisition of contemporary art became a very profitable investment. While stock markets fell and banks failed, the value of iconic works of contemporary art continued to rise, as did the number of participants in the market. A few years ago, an international auction house Sotheby's counted on buyers from three countries. Now there are already more than two dozen such countries, and no one will be surprised by the presence of new wealthy collectors from China, India and South America. Major market economies have entered the supply-demand game, with the former greatly outweighing the latter. The cost of works by deceased artists (who, as a result, will no longer create new works) - Picasso, Warhol, Pollock, Giacometti and others - continues to grow rapidly.

Will Gompertz

Incomprehensible art. From Monet to Banksy

To my wife Kate and children Arthur, Ned, Mary and George

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?

150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye

First published in Great Britain in the English language by Penguin Books Ltd. This edition published by arrangement with Penguin Books Ltd. and Andrew Numberg Literary Agency

Translation from English by Irina Litvinova

Preface

Introduction

Incomprehensible art

“Baby, don’t say ‘derivative’ is a bad word!”

“It’s just more convenient for us to work with dead artists!”

It is growing thanks to new wealthy bankers and shady oligarchs, as well as ambitious small-town and tourism-oriented countries who want to "create their own Bilbao" - in other words, change their image and increase their appeal with an impressive art gallery. Everyone has long understood: it is not enough to buy a gigantic mansion or an architectural monument. Filled with scandalous works of art, it will become much more interesting for visitors. And there are not so many such works.

If you can’t get hold of the “classics” of contemporary art, “contemporaries” help out. These are works by living artists who continue the tradition of modern art (the beginning of which we agree to consider the work of the impressionists of the seventies of the 19th century). But in this segment, prices have soared: the cost of works by famous artists, such as the American pop art master Jeff Koons, is now prohibitive.

Koons is famous for his huge, flower-decorated Puppy (1992), as well as his numerous caricature aluminum sculptures imitating figures made from balloons. In the mid-1990s, Koons' work could be purchased for several thousand dollars. By 2010, his compositions, bright as candy, were already selling for millions. His name has become a brand, and his works are instantly recognizable, like a logo Nike. In the wake of today's collecting boom, he has become fabulously rich - along with many other artists today.

Once penniless, artists are now multimillionaires with all the trappings expected of glamorous stars: celebrity friends, private jets and the attention of a sensation-hungry press that follows their every move. The incredibly expanded segment of glossy magazines at the end of the 20th century is delighted to help a new generation of creators create a public image - in exchange for the right to publish photographs from their private parties. Photographs of artists in front of their own works in dazzling designer interiors where the rich and famous gather are like peering through a keyhole, and gloss readers greedily devour such information (even the Tate Gallery hired a publisher Vogue to publish his own magazine called Tate Members).

To my wife Kate and children Arthur, Ned, Mary and George

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?

150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye

First published in Great Britain in the English language by Penguin Books Ltd. This edition published by arrangement with Penguin Books Ltd. and Andrew Numberg Literary Agency

Translation from English by Irina Litvinova

Preface

Introduction

Incomprehensible art

“Baby, don’t say ‘derivative’ is a bad word!”

To my wife Kate and children Arthur, Ned, Mary and George

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?

150 Years of Modern Art in the Blink of an Eye

First published in Great Britain in the English language by Penguin Books Ltd. This edition published by arrangement with Penguin Books Ltd. and Andrew Numberg Literary Agency

Translation from English by Irina Litvinova

Preface

Introduction
Incomprehensible art

“Baby, don’t say ‘derivative’ is a bad word!”

“It’s just more convenient for us to work with dead artists!”

It is growing thanks to new wealthy bankers and shady oligarchs, as well as ambitious small towns and tourism-oriented countries who want to "create their own Bilbao" - in other words, change their image and increase their appeal with an impressive art gallery. Everyone has long understood: it is not enough to buy a gigantic mansion or an architectural monument. Filled with scandalous works of art, it will become much more interesting for visitors. And there are not so many such works.

Once penniless, artists are now multimillionaires with all the trappings expected of glamorous stars: celebrity friends, private jets and the attention of a sensation-hungry press following their every move. The incredibly expanded segment of glossy magazines at the end of the 20th century is delighted to help a new generation of creators create a public image - in exchange for the right to publish photographs from their private parties. Photographs of artists in front of their own works in dazzling designer interiors where the rich and famous gather are like peering through a keyhole, and gloss readers greedily devour such information (even the Tate Gallery hired a publisher Vogue to publish his own magazine called Tate Members).

These kinds of magazines, together with color newspaper supplements, created a fashionable cosmopolitan audience for fashionable cosmopolitan art - a fresh viewer, indifferent to the "dim" painting of the past, which the previous generation had revered. Today's many gallery-goers want today's art - fresh, dynamic and vibrant. Art "here and now". Modern and in demand, like themselves, art is akin to rock and roll: noisy, rebellious, entertaining and cool.

New viewers face the same problem that we all face in the face of art: the problem of comprehension. Whether you're a seasoned art dealer, a leading academic, or a museum curator, anyone can be confused when looking at canvases or sculptures fresh from the creator's studio. Even Nicholas Serota, the internationally respected director of Britain's Tate Imperial Gallery, gets confused from time to time. He once admitted to me that he gets a little scared when he walks into an artist’s studio and sees his new work. “I don’t even know what to think,” he said. “Sometimes things get scary.” If world authority in the field of new contemporary art is lost, then how can everyone else judge this art?

I think it's still possible. After all, the problem is not whether this work is a masterpiece or not - time will decide for us. It is more important to understand how and why a given work fits into the history of art. This is the paradox of our flirtation with contemporary art: on the one hand, millions of people visit the Pompidou Center, New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Tate Gallery in London, but, on the other hand, the most common comment in conversations about contemporary art is: “Oh, I don’t understand this at all.”

This cheerful admission of ignorance does not imply a lack of culture or intelligence. I have heard famous writers, successful film directors, high-ranking politicians and university professors say the same thing. Of course, all of them, with rare exceptions, are wrong. They are very knowledgeable about art. They know that Michelangelo is the author of the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, and Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa. And certainly almost everyone knows that Auguste Rodin was a sculptor and most will be able to name one or two of his works. What they really mean is that they don't understand modern art. Although this is not entirely true. After all, they know, for example, that Andy Warhol painted 32 cans of Campbell's soup; they simply do not perceive these paintings. They cannot understand why something that a child can do is unconditionally recognized as a masterpiece. And deep down they suspect that this is an outright deception - it’s just that now, when fashion has changed, it’s not customary to say such things.

This doesn't seem like a scam to me. New art (a concept covering the period from the 60s of the 19th century to the 70s of the 20th century) and contemporary art (this term is applied mainly to the present day and only occasionally to works created after the First World War) are not a long-lasting hoax, performed before a gullible audience by a few knowledgeable experts. Many works created today will not stand the test of time, but among them there are also works that, while remaining unnoticed today, will be recognized as masterpieces tomorrow. Such truly unique works of art created today and in the last century are truly the greatest achievements of mankind. Only a fool would question the genius of Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Barbara Hepworth, Vincent Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo. You don't have to be a seasoned music lover to know that Bach could compose a melody, and Sinatra could sing it.

I think that when it comes to appreciating contemporary art, the starting point should not be a judgment of whether it is good or not, but an understanding of its evolution from the classic works of Leonardo to today's formalized sharks and unmade beds. As is the case with most objects that seem incomprehensible at first glance, art is somewhat reminiscent of a game - once you master the basic rules, and what is initially incomprehensible immediately acquires some meaning. And, if we accept conceptualism as a rule for modern art - which no one can either understand or briefly explain over a cup of coffee - then everything becomes surprisingly simple.

Everything you need to understand the basics can be found in this history of the last 150 years, when art changed the world, and the world transformed art. All artistic movements, all “isms” are intricately intertwined with each other, they are indissoluble, like links in one chain. But each movement has its own canon, its own approach, its own creative method, which arose as a combination of a wide variety of artistic, social, political and technological influences.

A fascinating story awaits you that I hope will make your next trip to the Tate, the Museum of Modern Art or your local art gallery a little less intimidating and a lot more interesting.

And it went something like this...

Chapter 1
Fountain, 1917

Monday, April 2, 1917. In Washington, American President Woodrow Wilson persuades Congress to formally declare war on Germany. Meanwhile, in New York, three well-dressed, youthful gentlemen leave the two-story apartment at number 33 West 67th Street and head towards the center. They carry on a conversation, smile, sometimes laugh quietly. For the thin, elegant Frenchman in the center and his stocky friends on the flanks, such walks are always a joy. Monsieur is an artist; he has not lived in this city for even two years: enough to get his bearings well, but too short to be fed up with its magical, sensual charms. He still gets excited every time he walks through Central Park south to Columbus Square. The picture of trees gradually giving way to buildings seems to him one of the wonders of the world. In his opinion, New York itself is a great work of art; it is a kind of sculpture park, full of magnificent modern forms, much more alive and relevant than the buildings of Venice - another great architectural creation of mankind.

The trio slowly walks along Broadway. This is a lonely tar tramp who has lurked among the rich and elegant streets, but both stocky ones - recognized American aesthetes - have no idea about his extravagant disposition. And only a Frenchman with his hypersensitivity understands: this is the fate of Broadway, and no amount of restructuring, alterations and initiatives of the mayor can change what has already marked the future of this street - innate vulgarity, over which even time is powerless. Nevertheless, the Frenchman finds a certain charm in her. More precisely, a certain charm of naturalness.

As the three approach the city center, the sun sinks lower and lower, and soon its rays cannot break through the barriers of glass and concrete; the shadows disappear, and their dead souls make you feel cold. The stocky men talk over the Frenchman's head - his hair is thrown back, revealing a high forehead and receding hairline. The two are chatting, and meanwhile he is thinking. They move on, and he stops. Looks into the window of a hardware store. He puts his cupped palms against the glass, protecting himself from the glare of the sun, so that long, sinewy fingers with well-groomed nails are visible: there is something of a thoroughbred stallion about him.

The pause does not last long. The Frenchman moves away from the window and looks around. His friends have already left. He shrugs his shoulders in bewilderment and lights a cigarette. Then he crosses the road, not to catch up with his companions, but in search of the warm embrace of the sun. It's already 4:50 in the afternoon, and a wave of anxiety is sweeping over the Frenchman. The shops will close soon, and you will have to wait until Monday morning, but then it will be too late.

He quickens his pace, but not too much. He tries not to react to external stimuli, but the brain resists - there is so much here that needs to be understood, thought about, tasted. Someone calls out to him - the Frenchman looks around: it is Walter Arensberg, one of his two companions, the shorter one. Arensberg had been a constant supporter of the Frenchman's artistic endeavors in America ever since he stepped off the ship on a windy June morning in 1915. Arensberg motions to his friend to return to the other side of the road and, passing Madison Square, exit onto Fifth Avenue. But the son of a notary from Normandy had already raised his head, looking at a huge concrete slice of cheese - the Flatiron Building fascinated the French artist long before his arrival in New York as a calling card of the city in which he immediately wanted to settle.

The Frenchman's first acquaintance with the twenty-two-story masterpiece took place in Paris through a photograph taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1903 and subsequently published in a French magazine. And now, fourteen years later, both the Flatiron Building and Stieglitz, the American photographer and gallery owner, were both part of a new life in the New World.

The artist is brought out of his reverie by another shout, in which this time one can hear some dissatisfaction. The portly Arensberg, a philanthropist and art collector, waves his hand vigorously. The third companion stands nearby and laughs. This is Joseph Stella (1877–1946), he is also an artist and understands his friend with his sharp Gallic mind and ability to freeze in admiration at what interests him. Stella herself knows this shock in the face of a breathtaking spectacle - the way a father looks at a newborn baby and sees future beauty and talent in a seemingly pitiful little freak.

Reunited, the trio moves further south along Fifth Avenue and stops at number 118, where J. L. Mott's plumbing store is located. Inside, Arensberg and Stella can barely contain their giggles as their Gallic companion searches through the bathroom fixtures and doorknobs on display. So he calls the seller and points his finger at the most ordinary white wall-mounted faience urinal. Wary, the seller informs three comrades that this model was made in Bedfordshire. The Frenchman nods, Stella grins, and Arensberg, loudly clapping the seller on the back, says that he is buying a urinal.

They go out. Arensberg and Stella go to catch a taxi. And a philosophically inclined French friend froze on the sidewalk with a heavy purchase in his hands, anticipating the upcoming trick with pissotiere, which I conceived together with my friends. With this prank they will definitely stir up the musty art world. Looking around at the shining white surface, Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) smiles to himself: what a mess this is going to be!

Duchamp brought the purchased product to his studio, on the same West 67th Street, where there were luxury apartments, which Arensberg agreed to pay for Duchamp in exchange for the right of first choice of future (including as yet unknown) masterpieces. The Frenchman placed a heavy earthenware object with its flat side on the floor and turned it so that it appeared to be upside down.

Then he sighed and on the left side of the outer rim of the urinal, in black paint, wrote his nickname with the date: “R. Matt 1917.” Now there is only one thing left to complete the project: give it a name. Let it be "Fountain". So an object that a few hours ago was just a standard, unremarkable sanitary fixture, as a result of Duchamp’s manipulations, turned into a work of art (ill. 1).

Il. 1. Marcel Duchamp. "Fountain" (1917)

At least that’s how it seemed to Duchamp himself. He believed that he had invented a new form of sculpture, in which the artist took a mass-produced object without any obvious aesthetic merit and deprived it of its functional purpose - in other words, rendered it useless - and then, by assigning a name and changing the context and perspective, turns it into a real work of art. He called his invention a “ready-made,” that is, a finished product.

Duchamp had been developing this idea for several years - in France he began by attaching a wheel on a bicycle fork to a stool. The design was intended for its own amusement. Marcel liked to spin the wheel and watch it spin. But later he began to consider this product as a work of art.

Having moved to America, our hero continued experiments of this kind: once he bought a shovel for clearing snow and wrote an inscription on it before hanging it from the ceiling by the handle. He signed the shovel with his name, but indicated that it was “from Duchamp” and not “made by Duchamp,” thereby clearly defining his own role in the process: artistic intention, not actual implementation. “Fountain” took this idea to a different, more public and confrontational level. Duchamp intended to exhibit it at the 1917 Exhibition of Independent Artists, the largest contemporary art exhibition ever held in America. The exhibition itself, a challenge to the American art establishment, was organized by the Society of Independent Artists, a group of free-thinking, future-oriented intellectuals opposed to the National Academy of Arts and its conservatism, which, in their opinion, is stifling modern art.

The founders of the Society announced that for one dollar any artist could become a member and everyone had the right to present two of their works at the Exhibition of Independent Artists of 1917, subject to payment of five dollars per exhibit. Marcel Duchamp was the head of the Society and a member of the organizing committee of the exhibition, which at least partly explains his decision to exhibit his hooligan exhibit there under a pseudonym. And this is what Duchamp is all about – a lover of wordplay and sharp jokes about the pompous art world.

After all, using the pseudonym “Matt” (which means “fool” in English), he simply changed the name of the Mott store, where the urinal was purchased. It was said that the pseudonym was an allusion to the comic strip about Mutt and Jeff, first published in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1907: one of its characters, A. Mutt, is a narrow-minded swindler with a penchant for adventures and developing idiotic ways to get rich quick, and his trusting friend Jeff is an inmate of a mental asylum. Considering that Duchamp, with the help of “Fountain,” intended to trick greedy collectors and ignorant but pretentious gallery owners, such an interpretation of the pseudonym seems quite justified. As well as the assumption that "R." implies "Richard" - the French colloquial name for moneybags. In general, it was never too easy with Duchamp; It was not for nothing that he ultimately chose chess over art.

In deliberately choosing a urinal to turn into a sculpture, Duchamp also had other goals in mind. He intended to question the very concept of a "work of art" as it was interpreted by learned critics, whom he considered self-proclaimed authorities and not very professional arbiters. For it is up to the artist to decide what is a work of art and what is not. Duchamp's position was as follows: if the artist, conscious of contexts and meanings, declared his work to be a work of art, then so it is. He understood: this proposal, with all its simplicity and accessibility, is capable of making a revolution in the artistic world as soon as it gains popularity and becomes generally accepted.

Duchamp sought to refute the concept that the material - be it canvas, marble, cardboard or stone - dictates what the artist should do. It was believed that the material was primary, and the artist was only allowed to embody his ideas in it with the help of a brush, pen or sculpture. Duchamp wanted to reverse this order. He attached secondary importance to the material: the main thing was the idea. Only after the artist has formulated and developed it, he chooses the material that can most successfully convey the idea. And if you need a faience urinal for this, it doesn’t matter. Essentially, anything can be art if the artist believes so, and this is the fundamental principle of creativity.

There was another common point of view that Duchamp wanted to expose as a fake, namely, that the artist is some higher form of human life. That he deserves the majestic status that society accords him for his exceptional intelligence, insight and wisdom. Duchamp believed that all this was nonsense: artists take themselves and are perceived by others too seriously.

The hidden meanings of “Fontana” were not limited to wordplay and provocation. Duchamp deliberately chose the urinal because this object has multiple meanings, primarily in a sexual sense, a theme Duchamp often used in his works. An upside-down urinal did not require much imagination from the viewer to notice its resemblance to the receptacle of the warm life-giving force pouring out from the penis - the female genitals. However, this hint did not reach those who sat next to Duchamp, so this is not why they refused to display “Fountain” at the Exhibition of Independent Artists of 1917.

As soon as the said piece arrived at the showroom on Lexington Avenue (just a few days after the trio's walk on Broadway), it immediately caused a mixture of shock and disgust in everyone. And, despite the fact that the envelope with a covering letter from Mr. R. Matt contained the required six dollars (one for participation in the exhibition and five for demonstrating the exhibit), most of the Society’s management (which, incidentally, included Arensberg and, naturally, , Duchamp, who knew perfectly well the provenance and purpose of the masterpiece and passionately spoke in its defense) the impression was created that Mr. Matt was mocking them, which, in fact, was true.

This was a challenge to the rest of the Society’s leadership, a test of its charter for strength. Duchamp egged his colleagues on whether they would actually follow the ideas that they themselves had proclaimed, namely: in defiance of the authoritarian opinion of the conservative National Academy of Design, to defend a new, liberal approach: if you are an artist and paid your own money, then your work should be exhibited. And period.

The Conservatives won this battle, but, as we all now know, they lost the war miserably. Mr. R. Mutt's exhibit was considered too offensive and vulgar only on the grounds that it was a urinal, that is, an object not very suitable for the conversation of Puritan-minded inhabitants. Duchamp and his associates immediately resigned from the leadership of the Society. The Fountain has never been shown in public. Nobody knows what happened to this work. It is believed that one of the leaders of the Society split it, thereby solving the problem of whether to display the urinal or not. Meanwhile, a couple of days later, in his gallery “291”, Alfred Stieglitz took a photograph of the notorious object, although it could have been a new, hastily produced copy of the “readymade”. Which also disappeared.

But the great power of opening is that you can’t close it back. And Stieglitz’s photograph played a decisive role here. The fact that the Fountain was taken by one of the most respected photographers in the art world, who also owns a famous avant-garde art gallery in Manhattan, was important for two reasons. Firstly, it certified the status of the Fountain as a full-fledged work of art, and therefore subject to mandatory registration as such. Secondly, now there was documentary evidence of his existence, so opponents could destroy Duchamp’s works as much as they wanted, because he could always go back to J.L. Mott’s store, buy another urinal and make an exact copy of the autograph using a photograph of Stieglitz. That's exactly what happened. In collections scattered around the world, there are fifteen copies of “Fountain”, certified by the author’s signature.

– On the left is a “ready-made”, in the center is a copy, and on the right is an item based on a “ready-made”...

When one of these copies is exhibited, it is quite amusing to see how seriously visitors take it. Crowds of connoisseurs without a hint of a smile surround the odious object and, craning their necks, endlessly peer at it, from time to time stepping back to look from a different angle. And this is just a urinal! And not even the original. Because art is an idea, not a subject.

The reverence with which “Fountain” is treated today would probably amuse Marcel Duchamp. After all, he chose the urinal precisely because of its lack of aesthetic appeal (what he called “art for the retina”). Never presented to the general public, this finished piece of art was intended purely as a provocation, but became the defining work of 20th-century art that changed the world. The ideas embodied in it influenced several artistic movements at once: Dadaism, surrealism, abstract expressionism, pop art and conceptualism. Of course, Marcel Duchamp is the most revered and most frequently cited of all modernist artists from Ai Weiwei to Damien Hirst.

Yes, but is it art? Or was Duchamp just joking? Made us all look like fools, thoughtfully scratching our chins while “appreciating” the latest exhibition of contemporary conceptual art? Fooled by a legion of respectable collectors and gullible rich people who were blinded by their own greed, turning them into proud owners of piles of junk? Didn't his challenge to museum curators to take a broader and more progressive view of things have the opposite effect? By declaring that the idea is more important than the means of its transmission, giving philosophy priority over technical techniques, did he not impose a new dogma on fellow artists, forcing them to treat craftsmanship with caution and condescension? Or is he a genius who liberated art from its medieval prison, just as Galileo liberated science three centuries earlier, laying the foundations for its prosperity and ultimately sparking an intellectual revolution with far-reaching consequences?

Will Gompertz - Black bread and the white race - LiveJournal. Incomprehensible art

Preface

Introduction Incomprehensible art

Chapter 1 Fountain, 1917

Introduction
Incomprehensible art

Chapter 1
Fountain, 1917