49 - § 1029 - at the invitation of the journal “Etant donné / Marcel Duchamp” I meet with Jean Suquet, in his dwelling, 49 1 On the day after the eve before, 49 1 1 one of tomorrow’s thoroughly mapped regions: they are indeed distinct from eves 49 1 1 1 which is why one says: “tomorrow is no eve” 49 2 during which I delivered a second talk, rather orally tiresome because the creakiness in my voice pained the beginnings of my long, profound parentheses 49 2 1 always hesitating over how they might be spoken 49 2 1 1 and I fear I may have over hesitated, saying I was hesitant, stating that I had to return far into previous pages to locate the point of the parenthetical insertion, which is easily understood; but, by speaking in this manner, I had hoped to impart the exact trouble 49 2 1 2 I can always test an other system in a subsequent discussion 49 3 at the invitation of the journal “Etant donné / Marcel Duchamp”, I meet, in his dwelling, Jean Suquet, the man who sought 49 3 1 as one pursues the Grail, or hunts the Beast Glatisant 49 4 for the entirety of his life, in the most removed recesses of the work, in the paintings, in the Boîtes, and in the Grand Verre, the “amour de loin” of MD, that trobar clus poet, the evaporating- blinding-luminous trace, that obscure triangle, 49 5 the wedded-Snark, the Lady of impenetrable senhal 49 3 1 the defining quality of all senhal 49 3 1 1 revealing to those who know what he hides from the ignorant, all the while hiding some thing other than what he reveals, revealing some thing other than what he hides 49 3 1 1 1 the trobar always undertakes ‘something other,’ simultaneously black within light, luminous in obscurity 49 6 even self-same 49 4 1 even, even 50 - § 1030 - Intimidated as one is in the presence of passion and a tape recorder. 50 1 Intimidated as one is in the presence of passion 50 1 1 and a tape recorder 50 2 I dare not ask him, prolonging the analogical rails into early 13th century Provence, if, within the climate of the trobar, 50 3 one could fairly characterize the famous célibataires as lozengiers 50 3 1 the ‘naysayers’ who interrupt the canso’s passage to its necessarily hidden addressee 50 3 2 even if self-same 50 3 3 a troubadour always already being a lozengier to himself .... 50 3 3 1 and by kindness 50 3 3 1 1 a senhal to Joe Bousquet’s detractor 50 4 Upon leaving I repent for my silence 50 4 1 rehearsing what I could have said better, more completely 50 5 and swear to repair it swiftly, epistolarily 50 5 1 oops! 50 6 meanwhile I preemptively write answers to eighteen written questions and 50 6 1 seizing the occasion by the locks that question 5 offers me 50 6 1 1 respond, in fact, rather beside the point, and yet 51 - § 1031 - On one occasion, I recreated, at length, a series of remarks, 51 1 On one occasion, I recreated, at length, a series of remarks, culled from the mass of poetic remarks I’ve been accumulating for years, in slices of 317 51 1 1 ordered in a purely chronological fashion and numbered like successive, instantaneous meditations 51 2 under the general theme ‘Duchamp and the Oulipo’ 51 2 1 I limit my culling to the most recent remarks; the earliest are not very removed from my moment of entry to the Oulipo 51 2 1 1 at which time Duchamp’s absent presence surprised me 51 2 1 2 the reader 51 2 1 2 1 I’ll profit from the occasion 51 2 1 3 is hereby invited to consult, with regards to Duchamp, (the Oulpian) Paul Braffort’s work 51 3 reprinting the numbers from my register of remarks, while prefacing each with letters, respecting their order in the sequence, as follows 51 3 1 now interspersing 51 3 1 1 in writing, when there’s space or, orally, as I present in the seminar 51 3 2 comments where necessary 51 3 2 1 clarifications, corrections if need be 51 3 2 1 1 but without adding on 51 4 Some remarks a - 3805 – The twentieth century harbored a dream, that of becoming, all by oneself, the entirety of the avant-garde (that dream was shared by Breton, Sollers, Debord, etc). a 1 – and numerous others of greater or lesser note. To be the avant-garde; to be alone as the avant-garde; to be the avant-garde above all others. As noted by dada: "there are those who antedated their manifestos in order to have you believe that they had first come upon the idea of their own greatness earlier than the others" a 2 – it never hurts to reread the Sept Manifestes Dada, from time to time a 3 – besides, Duchamp was first and foremost dada; he becomes surrealist merely by convenience, idleness, and misunderstanding b - 3806 – The means by which Breton (and others) articulated this dream were naïve and crude. The more elegant expression was Duchamp’s. – b1 –in a different register of elegance, more obviously megalomaniacal to the cognoscenti, yet hidden to the century’s ignorant, one might also cite the general project envisioned by François Le Lionnais, - b 1 1 – whose name is absent from the Robert of proper names and the Larousse 2000! c - 3815 – Duchamp’s 1938 suit-case project (‘an album of approximately all the things I have produced’ (Letter to Katherine Dreier, 1935)) approximates the so-called Warburg ‘Mnemosyn’ project, except his is an auto-Mnemosyn. - c 1 – for more on the Mnemosyn project see, in this same work, my own, chapter 1 of branche 5 [(La bibliothèque de Warburg)] d - 3816 - With the invention of the Ou-x-pos, F.L.L. (François Le Lionnais) outduchamped Duchamp. - d 1 – I don’t know if, for FLL, it was a conscious effort of one-upmanship e - 3817 -F.L.L. was a Duchamp-Douanier Rousseau. - e 1 – in writing remark –e – I opted of the hypothesis of a relatively naïve FLL. I’m less sure of that today, being less naïve myself; hence d 1 . f - 3818 -F.L.L = François le Duchampi. - f 1 – same caveat as e 1 g - 3819 - That readymades are readymade-in-France or, more precisely, in French. - g 1 – now I would even say ‘Frenchglish’ h - 3820 – These remarks (3815-3819) are impropperizations of Duchamp. - h 1 – Popper, proper; propp; unfalsifiable propositions; porno-flic poppers of stupefying images etc. i - 3821 – “Duchamp” against the blowhards: abstract expressionism. - i 1 – possibly excessive reflection; in fact, I longer quite see the pertinence; and, there are so many other contemporary blowhards 51 5 j - 3822 - Duchamp is not an artist; not a non-artist; not an anti-artist. Duchamp is a non-non-artist. - j 1 – I know I am contradicting the received doxa in Duchampian matters, just as I am contradicting numerous claims by Duchamp himself; but this hypothesis appears to unique in aligning attitudes that otherwise appear to be contradictory. I’m not saying that contradictions are impossible in Duchamp. Indeed, we could allow for variations over time. Nonetheless… k - 3823 -What renders Duchamp relevant is never ex falso quodlibet. - k 1 – anything but the ‘anything goes’ that some néo-Duchampian artists have raised to the rank of dogma l - 3824 – Rather, Duchamp’s art is une cosa tilleul-menthale. - k 1 no comment m - 3825 - Duchamp follows Alphonse Allais. And, going even further back, he follows the poet fascinated with essentially bachelor machines (the phonograph, color photography, and mechanisms for communicating with planets), Charles Cros - m 1 Duchamp’s well-known interest in Alphonse Allais has been excessively linked the latter’s attention to word games. But let’s not forget Allais the experimenter, friend to the discoverer of fluorine and future Nobel prize winner, inventor of monochromes - m 1 1 which he treat ‘à la duchamp’ by giving them titles - m 2 as well as various machines, such as the one that would eliminate rubber’s essential property, “the elasticity that makes it improper for so many uses.” n - 3826 - Readymades as incomprehensible without Rrose Sélavy (works) - n 1 coda on a theme I had already frequently evoked in my previous remarks: the role played by language, more precisely “Frenchglish”; and, in both cases, the preponderant role accorded to fixed expressions, or “langage cuit” - n 2 statement of Duchmapian Desnos - n 2 1 let’s not forget that Desnos is the only Surrealist for whom Duchamp did not merely represent a Press-book prop for the sect; Desnos actually followed his example, in poetry - n 2 2 these precise conditions were reproduced for Roussel. Contrary to Breton, Desnos took a passionate interest in what the author Impressions d’Afrique wrote o - 3827 Rrose Sélavy (sayings): readymades of speech. o 1 – such manipulations of fixed expression (langage cuit) approximates the material bricolage of manufactured objects o 2 an example, recounted by Mina Loy, appears in étant donné Marcel Duchamp n°1 p.82 : One day, in 1917, Mina Loy took a seat between, Arthur Cravan, whom she called the Colossus, and Marcel: “Where the Colossus was heavy-handed, Marcel possessed prestidigital ease; he knew how to insinuate his hand under a woman’s bodice with utter grace. One might well say,he ventured, his beautiful aerodynamic face pressed up against mine, Madame, you have pretty satin panties [Madame, vous avez un joli caleçon de satin]. One might also say, he concluded with a naughty kiss, Madame, you have a dirty slut’s slit [Madame, vous avez un sale con de catin].” o 2 1 - the permutations of consonants runs as follows: c-s-s ---> s-c-c; thus, not a strict spoonerism, yet the strategy is quite the same: first what one may say, then what one may not. 51 6 p - 3828 FLL’s major creation: the Oupoumpo. Oupoumpo refers (metaphorically and metaeuphorically) to the “inductive limit” (in a purely metaphorical sense, I’ll insist) of the ou-ou-.... - x - .... -po- .... - po for all “x,” (supposedly managing adequate transformations from one “x” to another). - p 1 I believe it necessary to modify the received definition of the ou-x-po—recently laid bare—that the Collège de Pataphysique seems intent on plying to its own ends. In effect, for the varied and otherwise arbitrary “x”s, that definition imagines the “ou-x-pos” as a disparate collection in which the sole common feature is a rather vague idea of potentiality - p 1 1 - and often, as is evinced in the Oucinépo, of a purely pataphysical character - p 2 and the adoption, via simple transpositions, of Oulipian techniques, mostly selected from the oldest and simplest constraints. - p 3 besides, it is clear that an ouvroir of “x” is of interest if and only if two conditions are met: - the practiced constraints must be chosen in accordance with the specific needs of the “x” at hand - the constraint systems of the ou-x-po in question must illustrate, in the case of that “x,” the particularization of a general and universal conception of potentiality. - p 4 The principles of this conception, the future foundation of the 0upoumpo, have not fully come to light. - p 5 There is yet another condition integral to the Oupoumpo, cast as the arch over the different “ou-x-pos,” as the pillars that support and separate them (“coiffant”): the “ou-x-pos” would be related via metaphors, interlinked via “transitional morphisms.” - p 6 The base material for a theory of Universal Potentiality has, for the moment, only found expression in the Oulipo, for the other ouvroirs, created later, are still too closely its model. Today we have but crude sketches of a possible Oupoumpo. - q - 3829 “Duchamp” against the blowpopulahards: Warhol, for instance. - q 8 He takes himself far too seriously. He ought not be taken seriously. Duchamp, au contraire, does not take himself seriously, yet he ought to be taken seriously. - r 3830 By “Duchamp” I mean a certain abstraction-modelization of the well known Marcel Duchamp one rather removed from the darling of contemporary art theory and marketeering. - s 3831 I should also remark that I’ve begun writing “Duchamp” as DuDuchamp (as, in French, one says Lalangue). - s 1 - like LaLangue, DuDuchamp is hard to grasp; it has boojum aspects; it reminds me of Duduche, my sister’s cat, daughter of Duchat, Georges Perec’s pussy. When some unauthorized hand stretched out to pet her, she did not scratch, did not protest, but so severely raised her hair and arched her back that it was strictly impossible to touch her, a gesture she completed utterly dispassionately and with perfect politeness: very Duduchampian. - t 3832 (rem. 3825, 3828) The DuDuchamp heralds the Oupoumpo. - t 1 the Oupoumpian project of Universal Potentiality will need to account for DuDuchamp. - t 2 that’s when pataphysics will find its real place - u 3833 The Oupoumpisme implies a radical oulipisme. - u 1 one aspect of a radical oulipisme: in examining each constraint, separate the generalizable from the non-generalizable in matters beyond language arts. More particularly, for all specifically linguistic constraints, examine which languages might exploit it, which not. - u 1 1 the lipogram, for example, begs that question; S+7 with yet more gravity - v 3834 The Oupoumpo, completed and corrected by DuDuchamp, brings into focus the quotient of naïveté native to the Oulipo’s first conception (possibly influenced by the word “literature”). - v 1 I cannot be certain, truthfully speaking, that such a “naïveté” inhabited the cofounders. Yet it seems to me that it is behind FLL’s methods. As a result, he overlooks the reach of his invention. - v 1 1 we, his disciples, we see further? Hmm. Perhaps that naïveté inhabits us. - w 3840 The idea of the readymade anticipates that of potentiality 52 - § 1000 – The idea of the readymade was an ironic anticipation of Oulipian potentiality 52 1 The idea of the readymade was an ironic anticipation of Oulipian poetentiality 52 1 1 t That is, it already implied a critique of its most demented hopes. 52 2 - x 3845 Duchamp’s “boxes” tend toward reproducibility. But not the mechanical reproducibility Benjamin thought through. Rather a de luxe reproducibility. - y 3899 Above all, the Great Glass is a language-game. - y 1 Welll, nearly. My remarks occasionally overstep an all too clear thinking. - z 3900 On Duchamp’s tomb: “Besides, others always die". The operative word is “besides.” - z 1 it enjoys the same status as “self-same” - aa 3901 Neo-duchampians must be told: du champ! du champ! - ab 3902 (rem. 3822; ici ‘j’) Reiterating: ...is not a painter. 52 3 - ac 3942 Duchamp works in language arts. - ac 1 but that’s too weak: he works, above all, the art of language 52 4 - ad 3943 Mr Tomkins (Duchamp’s biographer) does not know that Duchamp is part of the Oulipo. He simply cannot understand Duchamp. 52 5 - ae 4081 - Duchamp: le title is the proper name of the work of art. see remark on Laforgue. - ae 1 somewhere he states that it is the titles that most please him in Laforgue. - af 4082 - Duchamp: what’s not moot in his work, I mean what’s not yet claimed by art history, anticipates the Oulipo. - af 1 and that which generalizes the Oulipo: the Oumpoumpo - af 2 this said, the works themselves are not “moot” by mere fact of having been absorbed by the art movement. I withdraw “moot.”. 52 6 - ag D, is a PL(agiarist)(by)ANT(icipation) of the Oulipo. (he’s what I call a PLANT) - ah 4083 - Ready-made: poetic genre. 53 - § 1033 - All words are ready-mades. 53 1 - ai 4084 – All words are ready-mades. Queneau underlines this fact in Le Chiendent. - ai 1 Dictionaries and catalogues of manufacturing: same battle - aj 4085 – Fixed forms of expression boiled hard in the cauldron of poems. [Langage cuit dans le faitou des poèmes.] 53 2 - ak 4086 - Duchamp held an unassailable belief in the most conventional idea of art and literature. To think that what he does as an example of anti-art or anti-literature is utterly erroneous. He furthers art and literature by other, newer means. - ak 1 FLL and Queneau did not commit this error of judgment. In truth, they had learned the lessons of the surrealist catastrophe. 53 3 - aL 4091 – The all-made in the c-all-dron [Le tout-fait dans le fait-tout (or faitout; word dated 1900 by the Petit Robert of 1970)] - aL 1 Expressions as-phy-xiated. [langage cuit à l’est-tout-fait.] - am 4093 - Duchamp (DuDuchamp) puts literature (or, more exactly literature under constraint) above art. He submits art to literature. - am 1 see above - an 4094 – MD: prefiguration of FLL. - ap 4095 - MD: a bit dandy, a bit farce (dandy-Dandin) - aq 4096 – From the stand point of tradition, meter and poetic forms are ready-mades of poetry. - aq 1 but what of a ready-made of an obsolete manufactured object? Or, worse, entirely vanished? Such is the state of abandoned meters. 53 4 - ar 4098 - (in a note from 1913 in Boîte Blanche: "can one create works (œuvres) that are not art?") again, the vast idea of art. - ar 1 playing on the ambiguity oeuvre-art. The drift is clear: all is art. Or else: nothing is art - as 4099 - readymade: ‘raie des vierges’ i.e. the object that has yet to be made (into a work). - as 1 this is how I slip into wordplay, a practice I would not recommend when talking about Duchamp is at hand. - as 1 1 similarly, constructions like ‘an x is an x is an x is an x,’ ought to be avoided when speaking of Gertrude Stein - as 1 1 1 especially when it is forgotten that Stein’s formula, ‘A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose,’ boasts three roses to the right of the predicate. 53 5 - as 4100 - when classifying readymades, André Gervais differentiates between the ‘titled’ and ‘untitled.’ But they are always titled by their generic name. If there is a specific, explicit title, then readymade is always the subtitle. The title might well be oblique (c.f. bottle-rack or hedgehog). The same conditions apply to the sonnet; and, to all poetic form. 53 6 - at 4101 - MD’s defintion of the readymade - May 1960: "A ready-made: first, this is the word I’ve taken to designate a work of art which isn’t one; in other words, that isn’t a work made by hand, by the hand of the artist. It is a work of art that becomes a work of art because I, or the artist declares it a work of art without requiring the slightest intervention by the said artist’s hand.” This is not true. The hand of the artist is in the title, in the signature, it is everywhere. Le rest, the object, enjoys the same status as color in easel painting. - au 4102 Definition of the readymade – Oct. 1963: "... not the act of an artist, but of a non-artist, an artisan if you want". Certainly not ‘a non-artist.’ ‘Artisan,’ of course, see the Oulipo. - au 1 - it’s reference to the Troubadours, and to the Rhétoriqueurs, who call themselves ‘facteurs,’ makers. Ouvroir, ouvrage d’art. [Workshop, work of art]. 54 - § 1034 - Gargantua’s ass-wipes, are they readymades? 54 1 - av 4103 - Gargantua’s ass-wipes, are they readymades? - aw 4104 - (4101=at) Besides, Duchamp describes the title as ‘invisible color.’ 54 2 - ax 4105 - A photograph is a readymade of a piece of world: the artist’s hand is decisively implied in choosing the piece. - ax 1 The manufacturer is implied in the arbitrary cut of the negative - ay 4106 – Duchampian practice is a belated response to the invention of photography. - ay 1 we have seen, we can see: photography’s imitation of art; art’s imitation of photography; photography’s imitation of art imitating nature; nature’s imitation of photography, and many other methods. Duchampian strategy consists of taking photography as creating ready-mades of the world. - az 4107 - The moment of shooting the object that becomes a readymade is an illumination. Having become a work of literary art, the readymade bears the worn shadow of that illumination. That shadow follows it for the course of its life’s work. Photographs can seize it in one of its states. (see the note on Boîte verte) - az 1 i can’t remember which. But it’s there. - ba 4110 – When, speaking of Bicycle wheel, the first readymade to be recognized as such, after the fact, when, much later, Duchamp says, “I had not intended to make of it a work” or again “I did not call it a work of art,” he merely indicates that perhaps he continues to conserve the received idea of art. - ba 1 and in any case, if that had really been his intension, he not succeed. - ba 2 and it is perfectly normal to consider a ready-made a work of art. - bb 4111 - The familial resemblance of Duchamp’s readymades: they are material artifacts -bb 1 Duchamp, in an interview from 1965 (in Fin 6 [June, 2000]): “in sum, all these ready-mades are fairly different one from the other… so different that there is not, if you will… a familial air between them …” Well! To the contrary, I would say there is an overtly designed resemblance between them: the ‘ready-made’ family. There is more resemblance between them than between two paintings, even by the same painter, even by the same painter depicting the same ‘subject.’ - bc 4112 - (generalisation of a remark by H.P. Roché). Readymades are objects of meditation. - bc 1 - the difference between the word in a dictionary and the same word in a poem 54 3 - bd 4112bis Extending the domain of the Oulipo: Readymades, for example. How? By considering that readymades are Laputian. - bd 1 Swift is un PLANT (Plagiarist by Anticipation) of Duchamp - bd 1 1 I’ve chosen the abbreviation PLANT in order to indicate that plagiarists anticipation are put where they are while waiting to be recognized for what they really are: Oulipian works. 54 4 - be 4122 When Duchamp is working for surrealism, from the thirties to the fifties, he really is on his game. Why? Because he takes works that have nothing to do with surrealism, like the ready-mades, and he turns them into surrealist art. The same gesture that transformed the non-artistic object into art becomes a gesture that renders banal the act of inventing the ready-made. - be 1 what the surrealist are capable of admitting in the ready-made is the avant-gardist act of destruction; that is, the element of the practice that is most passée today - be 2 perhaps I am being excessively severe. We might well also reflect that Duchamp makes due with what he has—that is, the support of the surrealists, even if they do not really understand the deeper sense of his practice 54 5 - bf 4123 A poem I wrote, inspired by Duchamp: Poem beginning * - bf 1 in the OULIPO-Compendium, the smart presentation/ anthologie of the Oulipo in English (eds. Harry Mathews of the Oulipo and Alistair Brotchie), there is a reprint of an Oulipian prose poem by Duchamp, The, ‘written directly in English,’ and followed by this set of instructions: "replace each* with the word: the” - bf 2 voici le début du poème: - bf 3 “The If you come into * linen, your time is thirsty because * ink saw some wood intelligent enough to get giddiness from a sister. - bf 4 only the title makes it into bf 4123; the text of my poem results from substituting * for every occurrence of the letters t-h-e in a poem by Zukofsky. I hereby offer you lines 1 through 7 - bf 5 1 * 2 Voice of Jesus I. Rush singing 3 in * wilderness 4 A boy’s best friend is his mo*r, 5 It’s your mo*r all * time. 6 Residue of Oedipus-faced wrecks 7 Creating out of * dead .............................................. - bg 4124 The effect of distance, of imperfection (4122) is accentuated by Breton’s veritably bovine incomprehension. For him, Duchamp works only as a commercial (advert). - bg 1 (on 11/18/2000) Jean Suquet rightly points out that I’m engaging in crude, primary, and summary anti-Bretonism. - bh - 4125 ready-once-made - bh 1 after so many years, ready-mades are like Cléopâtre’s combs: so distant, so strange - bi 4126 rm (ready-made)=photo in 3 dimensions - bj 4127 The ‘ final millimeter,’ where is art: the signature. - bk 4128 who says Duchamp says ready-made; reciprocally, who says ready-made says Duchamp. Are there rm s other than Duchamp’s? - bk 1 project: turn all objets in the monde into r.m.: entitle & sign. - bL 4129 In law, all rm s are Duchamp’s. - bL 1 as we can say: all sonnets are Petrarque’s sonnets - bm 4130 Duchamp appropriated the world of the manufactured, as composed of works of art. 54 6 - bn 4131 The polemic over Duchamp’s massive authorization of replicas of rm s is comical. But his answer, or his refusal to answer, is also comical. In fact, he did not know how or did not want to answer seriously. Duchamp had to replicate his rm s. Otherwise, over time they would cease to conserve (4125) their distinctive properties, which is contradictory. - bo 4132 Either little-a: an object from the manufactured world. Or rm(little-a): its ready-made; in other words, ‘little-a + authenticator.’ Rm(little-a) is a work of art. But, according to Duchamp, it is also a non-work of art. He is right. But if non art, one can ready-make-it. One needs only replicate. It is therefore replication (rm(little-a)) that becomes the work (devient oeuvre). The operator rm can be applied several times. The rm must be replicated. Otherwise, it is but a work of art. - bp 4133 Prior to being replicated, an rm must be duplicated: its property as a non-work of art warrant it. An authenticated duplicate becomes a replica. - bq 4134 The replica, arising from the ready-made treatment itself as a object manufactured by the intermediary of the duplicates (which must be numerous), is not the contrafactum, itself a new version of the ready-made. - br 4135 The rm evinces a hatred of photography. - bs 4136 No ready-made is flat. - bs 1 to my knowledge - bt 4137 In surveying the list of ready-mades, I see neither typescript, nor print media. - bu 4141 j’apelle [I caul] (sic, not a spelling mistake) that ready-made. - bv 4142 Nevertheless, nothing so ‘manual’ as signature. It’s literal opposite of ‘curtailing one’s hands’ [‘se couper les mains’]. It’s keeping the absolute minimum, and in this respect Duchamp proves that he cannot ‘withdraw his hands’ [‘oter ses mains’]. - bw 4143 In the infrathin slips the toungue. - bx 4146 Gilbert Lascault: "who speaks of Duchamp aught never refuse a possible play on words.’ Humm. To the contrary "... would be best advised to admit wordplay with extreme precaution.” - by 4147 Thierry de Duve’s definition of the ready-made: "It is a work of art reduced to enunciation: ‘ceci est de l’art.’” No. It is an artwork of poetry. - by 1 not of literature: of poetry - by 2 poetry must take as its source practical truth