About Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968)

In the later years of Marcel Duchamp’s life, he liked to say that he was simply a “respirateur,” a “breather.” After a lifetime of pursuing art and perfecting his game of chess, Duchamp had evolved into a work of art himself. He did not have to justify or explain his art or way of life, that was up to his interviewer and posterity. His main responsibility in life: to breathe, long and deep, taking in this world’s oxygen just the same as any other mortal man.

While the name Duchamp may not ring a bell, you have surely seen or heard about one or two of his works. For example, he is the artist that painted a jaunty mustache on a postcard reproduction of the Mona Lisa (1919). He also submitted, under the same R. Mutt, an inverted urinal to an art show (1917). Although the urinal was rejected from the show, it has become a legendary anti-sculpture.

I came to admire Duchamp’s self-described title as “respirateur” after reading Duchamp: A Biography by Calvine Tomkins. He was a man who lived his life by his own rules, unafraid to fly in the face of a conventional life and all its creature comforts. He breathed and he created things. In a world suffused with material objects, he transformed the mundane into art by making his “readymades.” He took a regular snow shovel, inscribed a cryptic title, signed it and it was art. Or was it? His art went beyond the visual and material elements associated with art and made his audience think and ask the question: what is art? (What would Duchamp have said about the CowParade?)

Duchamp inspired young artists to think freely, think boldly about both art and life. Some criticized Duchamp for all the bad art that sallied forth in the late twentieth century. And there has been some regrettable artwork. And yet I have to say that Duchamp has inspired me in a positive way. It is my job to be a “respirateur.” For too long I have been enslaved by doctrinal dictates and good-girl standards that compel me to observe and serve the world. Being a good-girl perfectionist, the observe-and-serve mandate dictates when it should merely guide.

First, one must breathe and then one can observe and just observe. Only then can I witness to what I see. Witness by my writing. By my art. And finally by my actions.

Duchamp taught me that it is okay to merely observe the world. In fact, it may be the finest act of humility there is. Of course, to accurately observe the world—to see truthfully what there is and what there should be—is enough for a lifetime. Practically, his life and art have also given me permission to write my novel by my own rules.

Making Sense of Marcel Duchamp
Timeline and pictures of his art.

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After Beef

I think my cow diversion has nearly runs its course.

The cows that decorate the world's major cities as part of the global public art movement, CowParade, are oddly fascinating. (See earlier blog: Car Parade: Budapest and Boston.)

I have spent too much time thinking about why people love these dressed up plaster bovines. But delight they do. Maybe it's the shared common form--your basic cow--transformed. You don't see a cow, you see how the cow was interpreted and that gives a jolt of pleasure as you impress yourself with your ability to understand the visual pun or message of the artist. People "get" this art. (In a way they don't get modern art?) This gives pleasure. Hence the cow parade goes on.

I can't help but think that in one hundred years, art historians will write books about early twenty-first century public art. Perhaps with the following title: "The Bovine Consciousness Emergent in Metropolitan Byways: A study." Or how about: "Heifers Rising: The Rise of Bovine Beauty in Early Twenty-first Century Urban Pastures."

But didn't I just say that my cow diversion was in its final throes of passion? Ready for the slaughter.

Let there be cows.

(Yet, it is so much more satisfying to write about parading cows than to attempt to write about the cow in the middle of my life, which is related to the elephant in the room, if you know what I mean.)

Vow to self: less caffeine, more tennis, less chatter, more keyboard clatter, and so forth.

Cow Parade: Budapest and Boston

And so I decided to instead write about cows.

That is correct, cows.

The CowParade is a phenomenal public art success by most measures. If you have not yet experienced the parade of cows in a major metropolis, it is a public art moo-vement (forgive me) intended to make art accessible for the masses. Cows are safe. Have you met a person who did not like cows? We all love ‘em, and most of us happily eat them. (Pause and consider what that says about human nature.)

And then someone got the bright idea to use cows as a blank canvas. Artists in each city transform the same basic cow model into fantastic flights of imagination (or sadly, mere advertisements for the companies who sponsor them). Peter Hanig, the even coordinator explains:

Art is about breaking down barriers. It gets people to feel, to think, to react. So when you come across life-sized cow sculptures that have been covered in mirrors or gumdrops, cows that have been painted with elaborate themes or transformed into something else entirely, you can’t help but stop and think about what it means. All your preconceived ideas go out the window. Suddenly people see that art can be fun and that art can be interesting to everyone, not just people who frequent museums.

Art can be fun. Indeed. I am not sure what artists have to say about that, but I can imagine that some agree and some are not amoosed (sorry, I can’t help it, really.)

Peruse the CowParade website. It is a hoot. People love these cows. And the cows raise a huge amount of money for charity. It looks like a win-win game: artists get public exposure, charities get cash, and the art is temporary (so no one has to actually LIVE with it for longer than a summer).

The cows do reflect a city’s culture. Boston’s cows were upright, dignified chaps. Budapest’s cows—yes, they are hosting the parade this summer—are not of the Boston Breed. Strangely, however, the official CowParade website does not list Budapest as a participant. Odd. Is Budapest a renegade cow stampede? Two striking examples of cows in Budapest:

Handicap Cow: his two back legs were amputated and replaced by old-fashioned wheelchair wheels. Not exactly whimsical. Especially when a beggar with a similar impediment worked the subway stairs within sight.

And my personal favorite: The Ice-Cream Cow. The cow is located just near the traditional café for distinguished ladies and gents, the Gerbaund. (Update: I recently learned that this is its new location. It was moved here after much controversy. Read this article from Budapest's English weekly newspaper, Budapest Sun.) It is blue cow ice cream melting into the hot summer pavement. If you imagined a cow as ice-cream, where would you have to insert the wooden stick? Exactly. On the stick it says: Don’t Lick.

I love Budapest and its cows. Whimsical without the sentiment.

Another Update: I found the official Hungarian site for the CowParade. Check it out and dust off your Hungarian language skills! http://www.cowparade.hu/index2.html

(Photo credits go to my Dad and his first digital camera.)

One Hour to Madness and Joy

One Hour to Madness and Joy

by Walt Whitman

One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not!
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)

O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!
O savage and tender achings! (I bequeath them to you my children,
I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)

O to be yielded to you whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me
in defiance of the world!
O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!
O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips of
a determin'd man.

O the puzzle, the thrice-tied knot, the deep and dark pool, all
untied and illumin'd!
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!

To be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from mine and
you from yours!
To find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of Nature!
To have the gag remov'd from one's mouth!
To have the feeling to-day or any day I am sufficient as I am.

O something unprov'd! something in a trance!
To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!
To court destruction with taunts, with invitations!
To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!
To rise thither with my inebriate soul!
To be lost if it must be so!
To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!
With one brief hour of madness and joy.

Poem: August Morning

Summer travels are finished. We are back in the Bend for the school year. Our trip home from Budapest was smooth--no delays or lost luggage to complain of.

Settling into the house will take time after such a long time on the road. I do not look forward to the unpacking. In fact I am a notorious non-unpacker. I live out of my suitcase for weeks rather than face the laundry I should do sooner rather than later. Of course L. unpacks first thing.

To kick things up a notch, here is a lovely poem to savor:

American Life in Poetry: Column 071 BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

William Carlos Williams, one of our country's most influential poets and a New Jersey physician, taught us to celebrate daily life. Here Albert Garcia offers us the simple pleasures and modest mysteries of a single summer day.

August Morning

It's ripe, the melon
by our sink. Yellow,
bee-bitten, soft, it perfumes
the house too sweetly.
At five I wake, the air
mournful in its quiet.
My wife's eyes swim calmly
under their lids, her mouth and jaw
relaxed, different.
What is happening in the silence
of this house? Curtains
hang heavily from their rods.
Ficus leaves tremble
at my footsteps. Yet
the colors outside are perfect--
orange geranium, blue lobelia.
I wander from room to room
like a man in a museum:
wife, children, books, flowers,
melon. Such still air. Soon
the mid-morning breeze will float in
like tepid water, then hot.
How do I start this day,
I who am unsure
of how my life has happened
or how to proceed
amid this warm and steady sweetness?

Poem copyright (c) by Albert Garcia from his latest book "Skunk Talk" (Bear Starr Press, 2005) and originally published in "Poetry East," No. 44. Reprinted by permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.

Back in Budapest

My parents arrived in Transylvania on Friday morning and I have hardly had time to check my email never mind think about blogging.

It is a long, long trip from Kansas to the land of pine trees, mineral water, and kurtos kalach. They have been troopers, however. This morning we arrived back in Budapest via overnight train. In the couchette to our right was a film crew from England (including Jeremy Daniels--whose passport was confused with one of ours at the border), who had just finished shooting a film in Romania. On our right, a group of folk singers/story tellers from Hungary. My family took up an entire couchette.

Saturday and Sunday were spent on the pot-holed roads between villages and bigger cities in Transylvania. We visited a region famous for its salt mines, partially because my hometown in Kansas also has salt mines. We thought it would make for an interesting parallel view of the two cultures. We took a bus down into the mines for a few hours tour.

The mines we visited were huge caverns used here for health and recreation. It is considered therapeutic for those with respiratory problems to spend hours down inside the mines breathing the air which is certainly pollen free. None of us noticed an air ventilation system. No fire escapes. After the 1.5 kilometer bus ride down into the mine, we descended about 200 wooden steps. The experience was eerie. The mine is now equipped with picnic tables, swings, ping pong tables, and room for badminton. There is a church and a museum. And, of course, a coffee bar. (Other parts of the mine are still in working condition.)

After leaving the mines we spent the afternoon in nearby Szovata, a resort town with a salty-water lake. The lake is filled with bobbing heads due to the buoyancy of the water. We didn't float ourselves; instead we enjoyed a long, long lunch on a patio near the lake.

We fed my parents all the local foods we love: cheeses, cakes, fresh fruits and vegetables, mushrooms taken down from the mountains, micc (a kind of grilled meat), kurtos kalach, etc.

We took them up into the mountains around Csik to look at land we might want to buy. We drank Csiki beer on the main street and people watched. (We kept the gypsies at arm's length.)

We played with grandma's new puppy, Bodza.

On Monday we visited the church at Csiksomlyo, famous for its miraculous Virgin Mary statue.

We ate Grandma’s lunch at 1 pm everyday—roka mushrooms paprikas or chicken paprikas, puliszka, or potatoes, or perhaps sheep’s milk cheese and always enough perfectly ripe watermelon to feed an army.

Thanks be to God, the heat wave broke before we arrived in Budapest today. We are all happily ensconced in our castle district residences, most of us sleeping off lunch and rich servings of cake.

Things observed during this trip to Transylvania:

1. Roads in Transylvania are not just for cars--expect hay-loaded horse carts, motorcycles, bikes, old ladies walking, hitchhikers, train crossings operated by hand, hand-picked berries or mushrooms for sale, trucks, and the occasional grazing cow.

2. Kansas and Transylvania have more in common than you might expect.

3. Poverty does not equal danger or violence.

4. Language barriers can be overcome by walking a puppy on the street.

5. Poverty does not equal lack of education.

6. "Decarbonated" does not mean no carbonation when looking for water with no gas.

7. If you are willing to give your last piece of pizza to a beggar woman, do not feel shocked or offended when she walks two steps away and shares it with her son right before your eyes.

8. Transylvania and Budapest--not handicap accessible.

9. Puppies are worth it.