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McEvilley, T. (2005). Triumph of Anti-Art: Conceptual and Performance Art in the Formation of Post-Modernism. New York, McPherson.

In his first chapter, "Kant, Duchamp, and Dada: The Background," Thomas McEvilley provides a historical perspective on the development of anti-art. He begins by explicating the early practice of Duchamp and his desire to make art appreciation a cognitive process.[1] In doing so, Duchamp checkmated the Kantian model of aesthetics that had defined art appreciation. This model, as presented in the "The Critique of Reason" and "The Analytic of the Beautiful," proposed that, 1) an aesthetic judgment is based on disinterested feelings of pleasure or displeasure, and that taste and aesthetic judgment have nothing to do with cognition; 2) that aesthetic judgment is universal and that there are no rules by which someone can be obliged to adjudicate something as beautiful; 3), that the judgment of beauty is purposeless, in that the object doesn’t seek to satisfy anything; and 4), that ones judgment is normative or a priori, and as such serves as an example of how others ought to judge. Duchamp—inspired by and with an intellectual base in Pyrrhonism—trumps the Kantian notion of aesthetics by creating art that is indifferent, or rather anti-art: “The readymades carry Pyrrohnist indifference into the realm of art and with its arrival the judgment of taste went out the window” (23-24).

In his quest to create a work of art that had the qualities of indifference—an anti-art—Marcel Duchamp began experimenting with everyday objects. In 1913, he affixed a bicycle wheel to a stool. Later, Duchamp would paint a moustache and goatee on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa by Leonardo Divinci. This work was titled, “L.H.O.O.Q” meaning “she has a hot ass”. By altering these objects Duchamp created the first of what would later be described as “ready-mades”—manufactured objects, that when altered became a work of art. The most famous ready-made of Duchamp’s career was “Fountain”—an upside down urinal that was signed with the name R. Mutt. [2] [3]

FOOTNOTES

[1] This shift from “retinal art”—art that is for the eyes—to a cognitive art—art that is for the mind—was the birth of what would later be described as “conceptual art”.

[2] Leland de la Durantaye explains in her article “Readymade Remade” that R. Mutt was actually only one letter off of the original manufacture’s name (Mott). Mutt she suggests, was a humors name to Duchamp, because of its implications of an animal (or work of art in this case) that was of poor pedigree. And because dogs, urinate to mark their territory. (1)

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WORKS CITED

(1) Durantaye, Leland de la. (2007) “Readymade Remade.” Cabinent Magazine. Issue 27. Fall