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CIHA2012
NORNBERG

The Challenge of the Object


Die Herausforderung des Objekts

33rct Congress of the International Committee


of the History of Art
33. lnternationaler Kunsthistoriker-Kongress
Niirnberg, 15.-20. Ju/i 2012

Congress Proceedings- Part 4

32. Wissenschaftlicher Beiband zum Anzeiger des Germanischen Nationalmuseums


Contentsjlnhalt

CONGRESS PROCEEDINGS- PART 4 Claudia Sedlarz 1192


Elsie de Wolfe and Tony Duquette. Two
Interior Designers and their Different Relation
to Objects

Section 16 Maureen Daly Goggin 1195


The Gendered ObjectjDas (De)Constructing Gender in Needle and
geschlechtsbezogene Objekt Thread. Political Assertions and Gender Bias
in Janie Terrero's 1912 WSPU Sampler

Evelina Guzauskyte 1199


Sabeth Buchmann/Pame/a M. Lee 1156
Fowl Play: The Symbolism of Birds. In Some
The Gendered Object. Introduction
Eighteenth-century Mexican ))Casta<< Paintings
Juli Carson 1159
Yuning Teng 1202
That Obscure Object of Gender. Kerry Tribe's
Disperse the Political Shadow. A Study on
))Critical Mass<<
Constructing and Deconstructing Authority in
a Case of Cixi's Portrait
Barbara Clausen 1162
The Silence of Performance and the
Assaf Pinkus 1207
Movement of Sculpture
The Transformative Body. Seeing through the
Schreinmadonna
Karen von Veh 1167
The Virgin Mary as a Feminist Icon in the
Work of Diane Victor

Petra Lange-Berndt 1171


The Fugitive Kind. Sigmar Polke's Section 17
Snakeskins Objecthood. Modernist and
Contemporary Perspectives/
Isabelle Graw 1175
Art as (Gendered) Quasi-Subject. Dinglichkeit. Moderne und
Anthropomorphism, Human Figures and zeitgenossische Perspektiven
Mannequins in the work of lsa Genzken and
Rachel Harrison
Regine Prange 1214
Harald Tesan 1178 Objecthood and the Problem of Form. A
Picassos Portriit von Gertrude Stein Critical Introduction
- Gertrude Steins Portriit von Picasso.
Korperlichkeit und kulturelle Differenz im Brigid Doherty 1219
Vorfeld des Kubismus Rilke's Magic Lantern

Tutta Palin 1183 R. Bruce Elder 1224


An Artistic Masquerade before Masquerade Futurism = Symbolism + Dynamism
Theory
Sebastian Egenhofer 1228
Beate Sontgen 1188 The Becoming of the Readymade. The
Touching Things Concept of the Work of Art after Duchamp

1151
Contents/lnhalt

Joyce Tsai 1231 Section 18


In Retrospect. Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and the The Absence of the Object and the
Work of Art Void/Die Abwesenheit des Objekts und
1233 die Leere
Simon Baier
Malevic's Sickle

Magdalena Nieslony 1238 Burcu Dogramaci 1276


Die Auferweckung und der Tod der Dinge im The Absence of the Object and the Void.
»ReismuS(( der russischen Avantgarde Introduction

Megan R. Luke 1242 Dominique Sirois-Rou/eau 1279


The Wandering llMerzbau(( Le mythe de Ia disparition de \'objet. Cas
llHome Stories((
Alessandro Nigro 1245
Muse addormentate, oggetti primi, strutture Erzsebet Tatai 1283
primarie. Da Brancusi a Morris attraverso The Re- and Dematerialization of the Object
Kubler (of Art). Through the Analysis of Hungarian
Examples from the Late 20'h and 21 ' 1 Century
Michael LUthy 1249
Zur iisthetischen Lebendigkeit moderner Mariko Kaname 1287
Kunst-Dinge Remarks on llEmptiness(( or llinterva\S(( in
Painting. Modernism and Orientalism
Paulo Venancio Filho 1253
Questioning the Object: the llNon-object(( and Ivan Ruiz 1291
Others To Destroy/Engender. The Reconfiguration of
the Object in Gabriel de Ia Mora's Work
Stephane Huchet 1255
l:objectivation sociale de I' artiste dans l'art Mathilda Legemah 1295
a
bresilien. De Helio Oiticica ( 1967) Vik Muniz Leerfelder. lntermediiire Raume in
(2010) kinematografischen lnstallationen

Stefan Neuner 1259 Kristin Marek 1300


Some Remarks on Dan Flavin's »Image- The Visibility of the Dead between Virtuality
ObjectS(( and Materiality. Visual Culture and the Culture
of Visibility in the Works of Christoph Schlingen-
Angela Matyssek 1262 sief, Teresa Margolies and Gregor Schneider
Subverting and Conserving the Authentic and
the Original in Contemporary Art Anne Thurmann-Jajes
Radio Art. The Perception of a Special Form of 1305
Philip Ursprung 1265 Dematerialized Art
Echo-Logy. Allan Kaprow and the Energy
Crisis Wolfgang Rathert 1309
Dekonstruktion oder Regression.
Ileana Parvu 1268 Ober »Entleerung(( in der Musik des
Between Commodity and Thing. The Object 20. Jahrhunderts
from 1985 to 1995
Alexander Streitberger 1313
Ralph Ubi 1271 Spezifische Objekte der Fotografie.
Prospectus. Blumenberg and Fried on Situationsasthetik und konzeptue\le Fotografie
Objecthood Ende der 1960er Jahre

Jessamyn A.S. Conrad 1318


Absence as Presence. The Mihrab as a
Means to and Metaphor for a Transcendental
God

Mariana Marchesi 1323


Images of the Absent Body in the Last
Argentinean Dictatorship. The Visual Works of
Juan Pablo Renzi

1152
Contents/lnhalt

Birgit Haehnel 1327 Uwe Hartmann 1376


The Trace of the Wounds in the White Cloth Restitution als Klassenfrage. Die
»UberfUhrung von Kunstwerten in das
Mari Rodriguez 1332 Eigentum des VolkeS{{ in der SBZ und in der
Dissolving the Art Object. Creating DDR
Experiences. The Collective El Sindicato,
1976-1978 Nawojka Ciesliriska-Lobkowicz 1380
Das Spannungsfeld von Nationalgedachtnis
Cristina Vasconcelos de Almeida 1336 und Politik. Restitution in Europa
On the Object Archiving its own Absence
Gilbert Lupfer 1385
Mark A. Cheetham 1340 Provenienzforschung und Kunstgeschichte.
The Absent Objects of EcoArt. Strategies of Spannungen und Perspektiven
the Remote & Ephemeral
Birgit Schwarz 1388
Rita Eder 1343 Hitlers Gemaldesammlungen in Fotoalben
Notes and Thoughts on the Outcome of
Section 18. The Absence of the Art Object Alice Halsdorfer 1393
and the Void Between Law and Morality. Mediation and the
Return of Cultural Property

Christian Feest/Lilia Rivero Weber 1397


Shared Heritage. The Ancient Mexican
Feather Headdress in Vienna
Section 19
Restitution Wendy Shaw 1402
The Valorization of Antiquities in the
late Ottoman Empire. Huseyin Zekai's
Benedicte Savoy 1346 discussion of Troy, Baalbek, and the
Restitution Scholarship of Antiquities in ))Holy
TreasureS{{ ( 1913)
Yann Patin 1351
Das restituierte Erbe Europas. Kunstbeute, lnes Rotermund-Reynard 1406
Archivraub und Restitutionen von 1814/15 An- und Abwesenheit des Kunstwerks im
kulturellen Gedachtnis. Die lrrfahrten der
Christina Kott 1355 ))Biche morte{{ von Gustave Courbet
Kunstwerke als Revanche? Die Problematik
der Restitutionen im und nach dem Ersten Kerstin Holm 1411
Weltkrieg in Westeuropa Beutekunst aus Deutschland in der
postsowjetischen Provinz. Worin liegt das
Ewa Manikowska 1360 Interesse der Kultur selbst?
National versus Universal? The restitution
debate between Poland and Soviet Russia
after the Riga Peace Treaty ( 1921)

Cedric GruatjLucia Martinez 1365 Section 20


Echange ou restitution? La negociation
Architecture as Object/ Architektur als
artistique de 1940-1941 entre Ia France et
I'Espagne Objekt

Martin Schieder 1367


))L'art frangais doit revenir d'AIIemagne en Alina PaynejGeorg Satzinger 1416
France{{. The Debate on Restitution of French Vorbemerkung
Art Works from Germany, 1918 and 1945
Alina Payne 1417
Isabelle le Masne de Chermont 1372 Architecture as Object. Introduction
))Les chefs-d'ceuvre des collections privees
frangaises retrouves en Allemagne par Ia Hildegard Sahler 1420
Commission de recuperation artistique et les Architektur als Objekt der Verehrung.
services allieS{{. Exposition, Paris, Orangerie Entstehung und Wirkung der GroBreliquien in
des Tuileries, juin-novembre 1946 Loreto, Jerusalem und Assisi

1153
Contents/lnhalt

Matteo Burioni 1425 Section CIHA


Displaced Buildings. The Tower of Babel, CIHA as the Object of Art History /Die
Pietro della Valle and the Biography of
Rolle des CIHA in der l<unstgeschichte
Archeological Objects

Louise Bourdua 1429


From Tomb to Museum. Andriola De' Santi's Thomas W. Gaehtgens 1472
Model City Introduction

1432 }aynie Anderson 1474


}ens Niebaum
Momente des lObjekthaften< im kirchlichen CIHA as the Object of Art History
Zentralbau der Renaissance
Heinrich Dilly 1477
1436 Geschichtslos, nicht ohne Geschichten. Die
Claudia Conforti
Zukunft der lnternationalen Kongresse fUr
II Castrum Dol oris ( 1689-1698) per san
Kunstgeschichte
Francesco Saverio al Bom Jesus di Goa di
Giovanbattista Foggini. Dono di Cosima Ill de'
Giovanna Perini Folesani 1482
Medici, granduca di Toscana
II contributo italiano ai congressi e colloqui
del CIHA dalle origini al 2000
Jorg Stabenow 1441
Urbane Objekte. Freistellung versus
Laszlo Beke 1486
Einbindung in der Architektur der
CIHA- Object or Subject?
frlihneuzeitlichen Stadt
lillian Carman 1488
Rafael Jackson 1446
Re-imagining Art History in South Africa
Architecture as Objet Trouve. Historical City
and Surrealist Sensibility Roberto Conduru 1492
Eccentric Essays. Teaching and Writing an
Regine Bonnefoit 1449 Worldwide History of Art at the Rio de Janeiro
Die llPaper Tube Structures« von Shigeru State University
Ban. llArchitektur als Objekt<< im wortlichen
Sinne Thierry DufrenejPeter }. Schneemann 1496
The CIHA as an Object. Object of Desire
Carmen Popescu 1454 - Object in the Making
Which Work of Art? Museum Architecture and
its Ambiguous Meanings Howard Morphy 1500
Meaningful Form. The Changing Boundaries
Alexandra Stara 1458 between Anthropology and Art History
Architectural Fragment as Museum Object.
The llMusee des Monuments Frangais« Toshio Watanabe 1505
Art Historical Canon and the Transnational
Markus Thome 1462
Constructed Objects. Museum Display John Clark 1507
of Medieval Architecture in North Art History and its Futures. The Asian Case of
America Non-Euramerica

Amy F. Ogata 1467 Hans Belting 1510


The Playhouse. An Architectural Object From World Art to Global Art. View on a New
Lesson Panorama

1154
Section 16
The Gendered Object/
Das geschlechtsbezogene Objekt

Chair /Sektionsleiter

Sabeth BuchmannjPamela M. Lee

Sabeth Buchmann/Pamela M. Lee 1156 Tutta Palin


The Gendered Object. Introduction An Artistic Masquerade before Masquerade 1183
Theory
)uti Carson 1159
That Obscure Object of Gender. Kerry Tribe's Beate Sontgen
llCritical Mass(( Touching Things 1188

Barbara Clausen Claudia Sedlarz


The Silence of Performance and the 1162 Elsie de Wolfe and Tony Duquette. Two 1192
Movement of Sculpture Interior Designers and their Different
Relation to Objects
Karen von Veh
The Virgin Mary as a Feminist Icon in the 1167 Maureen Daly Goggin
Work of Diane Victor (De)Constructing Gender in Needle and 1195
Thread. Political Assertions and Gender
Petra Lange-Berndt Bias in Janie Terrero's 1912 WSPU Sampler
The Fugitive Kind. Sigmar Polke's 1171
Snakeskins Evelina Gutauskyte
Fowl Play: The Symbolism of Birds. In
Isabelle Graw Some Eighteenth-century Mexican llCasta(( 1199
Art as (Gendered) Quasi-Subject. 1175 Paintings
Anthropomorphism, Human Figures and
Mannequins in the work of Isa Genzken and Yuning Teng
Rachel Harrison Disperse the Political Shadow. A Study on
Constructing and Deconstructing Authority 1202
Harald Tesan in a Case of Cixi's Portrait
Picassos Portrat von Gertrude Stein 1178
- Gertrude Steins Portrat von Picasso. Assaf Pinkus
Korperlichkeit und kulturelle Differenz im The Transformative Body. Seeing through
Vorfeld des Kubismus the Schreinmadonna 1207

1155
Objecthood. Modernist and Contemporary Perspectives/Dinglichkeit. Moderne und zeitgeniissische Perspektiven 17

Sebastian Egenhofer
The Becoming of the Readymade
The Concept of the Work of Art after Duchamp

1. Objecthood The Readymades were thus an exceptional attack on, up to then,


After so many years the Readymades still seem to be the most defining features of the work of art; they seem merely to exist, pas-
radical examples of objecthood in twentieth century art. In the sively, in a world, instead of articulating a world on their own.
days of his late fame, Duchamp highlighted their paradoxical qua-
lity of qualitylessness, or of aesthetic indifference. The choice of 2. Exposition
a Readymade should not be troubled by any affection. It should be But then how did they acquire their prominent place in twentieth
a moment of disinterestedness. And the object should silently century art history? Is it simply a consequence of the ))speech act«
promise to remain uninteresting for a long time to come. In the - ))this is a work of art« - once uttered by Duchamp? Or is it a result
sixties, the ))bottle rack<< began to look ))pretty,<< as Duchamp of the defining effects of an ))institutional frame« that tries to make
deplored. But, all in all, his endeavor for anesthesia was successful these objects into works, and, retroactively, exposes itself in this
as some comparisons show. very activity?
In contrast to the choice of a Readymade, finding an ))Objet I think these two dominant interpretations are too empty on the
trouve<< is, as Duchamp insisted himself, controlled by taste: ))you one hand, and too narrow on the other. The speech act, ))this is a
see it and [ ... ] you say )Qh that's beautiful.< Particularly those work of art,« would remain inefficient without a medium of inscrip-
beautiful pieces of wood at the beach.<< 1 The ))Objet trouve<< is to tion, a medium to gain momentum. Even if the artist ))Shout[s] from
be found on the coastline of preconscious desires, as Breton made all the rooftops that he is a genius,« 6 it remains up to posterity to
explicit in ))L'Amour fou.<< It effects the release of a libidinal inhibi- make the work into a work of art. But posterity is not just the mono-
tion, transforming its finder's frame of consciousness: a subjective lithic institution called a ))museum.« The Readymades had ripened
resonance is attributed to the object as its ))Convulsive beauty.<< This for a long time in Duchamp's different studios: they had produced
effect is ))exactly the opposite of the Readymade,« 2 of its anesthetic traces in the forms of photographs, of texts and of other works; they
dullness. had entered his own miniature museum - the ))Box in a Valise« -
A nearly abstract sculpture by Brancusi is not quite an ))image« before passing through this purportedly defining institutional frame.
of a newborn; rather, it is an object like a rugby ball. But its form Duchamp called the integral process in which the Readymades
alludes to a mythical egg and to the world's beginning. Even in the came into contact with the future world the process of its ))expo-
case of those ))Newborns« Brancusi had cast in stainless steel, sition.«7 Emblematic for this is the ))Readymade malheureux,« a
the surface had to be polished by hand for a long period of, what geometry-book 'exposed' on Suzanne Duchamp's balcony to the
one might call, ))motherly work,« whose perfection was reached wind, casting doubt on its all too Euclidean certainties.
when the archetypical form and the ephemeral visual present In this case, ))process« is paramount, to the point that no object-
would magically coalesce. The Readymade, in contrast, is not the like core remains: the book dissolves in the Paris weather. Most of
singular actualization of an archetype, but an arbitrary instance of the Readymades, though, are composed of fairly durable materials.
a prototype: one of so many objects born from the womb of the ))In a thousand years,« Donald Judd imagined, ))the art of this century
same factory. In the sixties Donald Judd was impressed by the non- will be ceramic sinks and toilets because that's all that will survive
compositional quality of the Readymades: they ))are [ ... ] seen at the wars and developers.« 8 And it's of course those bones of history
once and not part by part,« 3 he remarked; they are thus seen like that the Readymades' objecthood scrutinizes.
the ))Single« 4 or ))Unitary« 5 forms he or Robert Morris produced. But
even in the radical cases of minimalist objecthood, these objects 3. Time and singularity
are ))forms.« Carl Andre's bricks, for example, adhere to a history But let me also cast some doubt on their ))Obdurate identity.« 9 In
and language of abstraction; they are replications of Stella's stripes his ))Notes« about the ))infra-mince,« Duchamp muses about the im-
on the floor. perceptible difference between objects stemming from the same
And, of course, a vacuum-cleaner declared a work of art by Koons mold, and about the difference within the very same object as it is
- methodologically quoting Duchamp - is so emphatically fetishistic separated from itself by the interval of a second in time. 10 Should
as to be far from the ordinariness of a snow shovel. the sheer existence of even the most durable Readymade have to
On an abstract level, those features of objecthood - of which be understood as a process of material transformation - be it so
the Readymades have remained extreme examples - might be for- slow as to fall beyond our frame of observation? And might the idea
malized as follows: first, there is no mediation between a whole of the ))infra-thin« difference relativize the Readymade's anonymi-
and its parts, and thus no immanent process ))animating« the pre- ty as a serial product in favor of its spatia-temporal ))thisness,« its
sence of the pieces. The Readymade is not - to use a term from ))haecceitas?«
Adorno - a synthetic ))Gebilde,« and in consequence, it does not But Duchamp did not care about the material object as such.
disclose an immanent ))Formgesetz« that reflects a structure of the Most of the original Readymades were lost and were reconstituted,
world at large. There is, further, no iconic allusion, since there is no often in a multiplicity of material bodies, all of them performing the
abstraction as well. There is no play of resemblance and dissem- function of the lost original just as well.
blance, just local identity. There is, finally, no problem of authen- This multiplicity has nothing in common with, say, that of the
ticity, since the anonymity of the factory severs the Readymade's copies of a book, which are mass-produced as instances of one
individual history. singular work of art, which, as a work of art, is the result of a

1228
17 Objecthood. Modernist and Contemporary Perspectives/Dinglichkeit. Moderne und zeitgenossische Perspektiven

highly individualized production process. The production of the on which for us, its belated beholders, the image of the 11Bride(( and
Readymade is instead concentrated in that very moment of choos- the 11Bachelor apparatUS(( appears.
ing and inscribing a date in one of so many objects, making it into Some of them - I can only hint to this in passing - were integrat-
the catalyst of its process of !!exposition.(( Only after this singu- ed in a photograph of cast shadows that remarkably resembles the
larization can the Readymade, now a work of art, be multiplied by !!Bride,(( 14 so that we might conclude they are parts of her body.
inscribing more of the same type of object or similar objects with, others, as Ulf Linde has shown, 15 are iconographically related to the
naturally, the selfsame, original date. 11Large Glass,(( sometimes, as in the case of the 11Bicycle Wheel(( or
This is obviously a decisive point. The production of the Ready- the 11Monte Carlo Bonds,(( substituting for a non-realized part of the
made has nothing to do with the production of the material thing, !!GlasS.(( But aside from these semantic and morphological connec-
which is 11already made(( when the Readymade's existence as a work tions, the Readymades - by the very structure of their temporality
begins. This beginning does not blend with a material process as - relate to the main subject and problem of the Glass, that is, to the
when one writes a book or polishes a piece of steel to make it into conception of a four-dimensional perspective in its difficult analogy
a sculpture. The beginning of the Readymade's existence as a work to the 11ordinary perspective(( controlling the work's lower part.
is sharpened into this unrepeatable point in time, a point that can The living !!Bride,(( herself a 11powen( and not the machine moved
be fixed in advance- as a note about the 11[s]pecification for IReady- by that power, 16 is four-dimensional. What we see in the upper half
mades((( 11 makes explicit. One can assign a future date for a ~~rendez­ of the picture is the 11Bride's(( projection on our three-dimensional
vous,(( and, in the meantime, one can look for a Readymade, since it space represented by means of 11ordinary perspective(( 17 on a two-
might not be easy to find something so tasteless as to give one no dimensional plane. I already outlined a formal idea of that four-
conscious reason to choose it. At the given moment, one buys and dimensional continuum, through which synchronous space has
inscribes this object of disinterest, as Duchamp did with the dog's to be considered a cut. The 11Large GlasS,(( though, gives some
comb on 17 February 1916 at 11 a.m. (fig. 1). sensuality to the idea of a non-synchronous temporal depth. The
The production of the Readymade is this act of authorship stripp- 11dust breeding,(( for example, is a projection of the dust 11of 3 or
ed bare: the inscription of a date and signature in an already given 4 months(( - abiding by the law of gravity - on the backside of the
thing. 12 But this inscription is only the beginning of the Readymade's glass. From the viewpoint of the belated beholder this sediment
becoming, a process that is always only provisionally limited by the appears as the so-called sieves through which the !!illuminating
fleeting present of its beholders. So the Readymade as work is not gas(( - the bachelor's ephemeral consciousness - has to pass: the
the object as such, the object of an aesthetic experience, or within sieves are thus 11a reversed image of porosity,(( 18 an image in terms
the grasp of an institution's power-effects. The object as such is of four-dimensional perspective and its temporal shortening- of the
always only in the plane or cut of a present. In this plane alone is the whole volume of breathable air that had carried the dust while it
Readymade llgiven(( - as form, as material thing, even as the hero settled upon the pane of glass.
of a history of reception that would multiply such temporal cuts and The 11Stoppages Etalon(( are supposed to be such projections, too:
list them in the space of a book - as Duchamp's 11Nude Descend- projections of the fall of an evenly stretched string a meter in length
ing a Staircase(( does with respect to the nude's past movement by from a meter high on a horizontal plane. 19 The curve that the string
folding its sequence back into the picture plane. produced in falling is the bottom line of this curtain made of space,
The shape of the Readymade's becoming is the shape of temporal time, air resistance, and gravity: they appear projected into the
depth as such that stretches from the point of its origin to the imaginary space of the bachelor apparatus as the 11Capillary TubeS.((
always more distant present. Clearly this non-synchronous shape The Glass as a whole is a cut not only in the space of 110rdinary
can neither be seen, nor objectified; it can only be misrepresented perspective,(( but also through the time of these meticulously de-
in the treacherous form of a diagram (fig. 2). regulated production processes that condense as the crust on its
backside. In this time and space of production the Readymades
4. The Readymades and the »Large Glass« emerged - each at its own moment in time. And it is precisely
The Readymades, though, belong to Duchamp's work following through the !!suddenness(( of their emergence that they relate to the
his 11complete liberation,(( 13 marked by the painting of the !!Bride,(( problem of a four-dimensional perspective. Since, basically, this is
in which he gave up the technique of cubist multiple foci and fu- the problem of how to mark, in the three-dimensional space in which
turist sequentiality. With the !!Bride(( began the adventure of the we live, that it is nothing but a cut through non-synchronicity, which
11Large GlasS(( - the chef-d'oeuvre that he declared definitively un- is the essence of time.
finished in 1923 -before it was smashed and had to be repaired. The To make this explicit, though, one can simply inscribe the date of
Readymades all emerged in the climate behind this pane of glass its actual present on it. For this one will need a material support, a

Fig. 1
Marcel Duchamp, Peigne, 1916

1229
Objecthood. Modernist and Contemporary Perspectives/Dinglichkeit. Moderne und zeitgenossische Perspektiven 17

5. Objecthood and temporality


The Readymades, for sure, are paradigmatic for the objecthood
that has befallen the traditional work of art for a century. 20 But its
object-like quality proves to be but a precondition for unfolding its
''temporality(( which is not objectifiable in any way; since, to
summarize, the Readymade has to be a serial product so that the
beginning of its becoming does not blend with the time of its mate-
rial production. It has to be an object of aesthetic indifference so as
not to adhere to the plane of that dated sensibility in or by which it
was found. To perform its function, to carry its date through time,
and to perform it efficiently, it has to be smooth and neutral like a
ball - be it on the table of the ))juggler of gravity(( or of the ))blind
lottery(( 21 of history.
Objecthood - and this is a more general conclusion - is a mis-
nomer, or a symptom for the transformed temporality of the work of
art after Duchamp, the work that is no longer a vehicle for a once ful-
ly self-present authorial intention, but a catalytic agent of meaning
production in and with time. The fact that the Cagean concept of the
Fig. 2 Cut through the temporal shape
work as an empty frame for chance encounters, the formal objec-
of the Readymade 's becoming (Sebastian Egenhofer)
thood of ))literalist(( art, to speak with Michael Fried, and the time-
and site-specific work of institutional critique that dissolves into
support that should not already carry the inscriptions of too many the reflection of its context - are all considered heirs to Duchamp
dates. Thus one will not find it at a flea market or on the beach, but evidences the same point. The Readymade - if it still is a monad -
rather in a hardware store. The Readymade is this neutral support, is a monad turned inside out; not having encoded a meaning into
the carrier of the inscription of a date, which immediately splits and its structure it is, to use a metaphor from the ''Green BoX,(( like ))a
begins to depart from itself; the material object as such is carried comet, which would have its tail in front,(( 22 Whatever we see in or
away- by the Bride, in the folds of her garment: the actual present- from it becomes apparent when and where this tail intersects our
from the moment of the validity of its date, which is the ''bachelor'S(( plane, its latest beholders' present. Objecthood, in all its historical
signature. variants, coagulates on this plane.

Notes
1 Marcel Duchamp: Interview with Jeanne Siegel, 1967. In: Marcel Duchamp: Duchamp in Munich 1912/Marcel Duchamp in Munchen. Exhb.cat. Stadtische
Interviews und Statements. Ed. and transl. by Serge Stauffer. Stuttgart 1992, Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau Munchen. Ed. by Helmut Friedel et al.
pp. 212-220, esp. 216 (in the published version of the interview [Arts, Summer Munich 2012, pp. 11-35, esp. 13.
1969] the quote is eliminated; I (re-)translate from Stauffers transcription of the 14 The Cast 11shadows11 and the 11Bride« are mirror reversed, consistent with a reading
tape). that understands the shadows as projections on the backside of the glass, whereas
2 Duchamp 1992 (note 1), p. 216. the painting shows the 11Bride1< from the front-side, the bachelors side.
3 Donald Judd: Specific Objects. In: Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1959-1975. 15 Ulf Linde: MARiee CELibataires. In: Ulf Linde/Walter Hopps/ Arturo Schwarz:
Halifax/New York 1975, pp. 181-189, esp. 183. Marcel Duchamp. Ready-mades, etc. (1913-1964). Paris 1964, pp. 39-68.- Ulf
4 judd 1975 (note 3), p. 182 and passim. Linde: CYCLE. La Roue de Bicyclette, val. 3: Abecedaire: approches critiques. In:
5 Robert Morris: Notes on Sculpture. In: Robert Morris: Continuous Project Altered Marcel Duchamp, Exhb.cat. Musee National d'Art Moderne Paris 1977. Ed. by Jean
Daily: The Writings of Robert Morris. Cambridge (Mass.)/London 1993, pp. 1-39, Clair. Paris 1977, pp. 35-41.
esp. 7 and passim. a
16 ))La Mariee sa base es tun moteur. Mais avant d'etre an moteur que transmet sa
6 Marcel Duchamp: The Creative Act. In: Robert Lebel: Marcel Duchamp. New York puissance tim ide - elle est cette pussance tim ide meme. Cette puissance timide
1959, pp. 77-78. est und sorte d'automobiline, essence d'amour.« (Duchamp 2008 (note 10), p. 78).
7 For a detailed account of the relation of the Ready-made's 11exposition« to the 17 Duchamp 1960 (note 11), n.p.
topology of the "Large Glass11 and the terminology of the Green Box see Sebastian 18 Duchamp 1960 (note 11), n.p.
Egenhofer: Abstraktion - Kapitalismus - Subjektivitat. Die Wahrheitsfunktion des 19 About the discrepancy between this manifest conception (announced in the "Idea
Werks in der Moderne. Munich 2008, p. 163-164. -Sebastian Egenhofer: Produkti- of Fabrication,« Duchamp 1960 (note 11 ), n.p.) and the realized work see: Rhonda
onsasthetik. Zurich 2010, p. 84, note 11. Roland Shearer /Stephen Jay Gould: Hidden in Plain Sight: Duchamp's 3 ))Standard
8 Donald Judd: A long discussion not about masterpieces but why there are so few Stoppages,11 More Truly a ))Stoppage« (An Invisible Mending) Than We Ever Realized.
of them, Part 2. In: Donald Judd: Complete Writings 1975-1986. Eindhoven 1987, In: toutfait, 1, 1999, URL: www.toutfait.comjissues/issue_1 /News/stoppages.
pp. 70-86, esp. 70. html (29.08.2012).
9 Judd 1975 (note 3), p. 187. 20 For a more general account of this "disease« in twentieth century art see Sebastian
10 Marcel Duchamp: Duchamp du Signe suivi de Notes. Paris 2008, p. 279 (no. 7), Egenhofer: Passages of the Object in the Art of Modernity. In: Re-Object. Exhb.cat.
282 (no. 18), 290 (no. 35rv). Kunsthaus Bregenz. Ed. by Eckhard Schneider. Koln 2007, pp. 162-168.
11 Marcel Duchamp: The Brides Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even, a typographic 21 Letter to Suzanne Duchamp and jean Crotti, 17th August 1952. In: Marcel
version by Richard Hamilton. New York 1960, n.p. Duchamp: Affectionately, Marcel. The Selected Correspondance of Marcel
12 See Thierry de Duve: Authorship Stripped Bare, Even, in: RES: Anthropology and Duchamp. Ed. by Francis Nauman/ Hector Obalk. Ghent 2000, p. 321.
Aesthetics, 19/20, 1990/1991, pp. 234-241. 22 Duchamp 1960 (note 11), n.p.
13 Marcel Duchamp: A Propos of Myself, slide lecture delievered at the City Art
Museum of St. Louis, Missouri, November 24, 1964, quoted in: Herbert Molderings: Photo credits
The Discovery of the Mind's Eye. Marcel Duchamp in Munich 1912. In: Marcel Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art: 1.- Archive of the author: 2.

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