Saturday, January 07, 2006

NYT article on Dada art and attack on Duchamp's urinal

 

Conceptual Artist as Vandal: Walk Tall and Carry a Little Hammer (or Ax)

Published: January 7, 2006

PARIS, Jan. 6 - The Dada movement made its name in the early 20th century by trying to destroy the conventional notion of art. Taking literal inspiration from their exploits this week, a latter-day neo-Dadaist took a small hammer to Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain," the factory-made urinal that is considered the cornerstone of Conceptual Art.

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Jean-Claude Planchet/Pompidou Center

Duchamp's "Fountain" in the "Dada" exhibition at the Pompidou.

Mauricio Duenas/Agence France-Presse

Mauricio Duenas/Agence France-Presse

Pierre Pinoncelli cut off part of his pinkie in Cali, Colombia, in 2002.

The assailant, a French performance artist named Pierre Pinoncelli, was immediately arrested after his act of vandalism, which took place on Wednesday, during the final days of the "Dada" exhibition at the Pompidou Center. The porcelain urinal was slightly chipped in the attack and was withdrawn to be restored. (The exhibition runs through Monday.)

Mr. Pinoncelli, 77, who urinated into the same urinal and struck it with a hammer in a show in Nîmes in 1993, has a long record of organizing bizarre happenings. Police officials said he again called his action a work of art, a tribute to Duchamp and other Dada artists.

Indeed, "Fountain" itself was rejected for being neither original nor art when Duchamp offered it for the first exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in New York in 1917. That version of the urinal, displayed upside down and signed "R. Mutt," was subsequently lost. The Pompidou's "Fountain" is one of eight signed replicas made by Duchamp in 1964.

After the attack on Wednesday, Mr. Pinoncelli was held by the police overnight. He was released on Thursday and ordered to appear in court here on Jan. 24 to answer charges of damaging the property of others. As in 1993, he could face a prison term or a fine. (After the first urinal attack, he was jailed for a month and fined the equivalent of $37,500.)

The Pompidou Center said it was too early to know the cost of restoring the work. (Curators said a different Duchamp urinal was already scheduled for inclusion in the version of the show traveling to the National of Gallery of Art in Washington, Feb. 19 through May 14, and to the Museum of Modern Art in New York, June 18 through Sept. 11.) The vandalism raises the persistent question of how valuable works of art can be protected in museums that log millions of visitors each year. Many paintings on display today are shielded by glass. At the Louvre, the "Mona Lisa," which was stolen in 1911 and struck by a stone in 1956, is now in a sealed enclosure behind 1.52-inch-thick glass.

Mr. Pinoncelli's attack also refocuses attention on the perennial question of what defines art. The question, playfully yet provocatively raised by the Dada movement nearly a century ago, has been refreshed since the 1980's by succeeding waves of Conceptual, installation and performance art. Like this week's case, such protests are often waged by artists themselves.

In 1999, for example, two Chinese artists, Yuan Cai and Jian Jun Xi Ianjun, jumped on "My Bed," a work by the British artist Tracey Emin comprising an unmade bed accompanied by empty bottles, dirty underwear and used condoms, that was on view at Tate Britain. The following year, the same two artists urinated on the Tate Modern's version of "Fountain," noting that Duchamp himself said artists defined art.

A British artist, Michael Landy, held what he called "Break Down" in an empty department store in London in 2001: in this happening, he destroyed all his possessions, including art donated by friends. Two other British artists, the Chapman brothers, were accused of vandalism in 2003 when they added the faces of clowns and puppets to the 80 etchings in an edition of Goya's "Disasters of War" that they had purchased.

In 1991, an artist generally described as unbalanced attacked Michelangelo's "David" statue in Florence, Italy, and damaged a foot.

Among numerous other protests, blue dye was sprayed over Carl Andre's display of bricks at the Tate Gallery in London in 1976, and black ink was squirted into a transparent container displaying Damien Hirst's dead sheep preserved in formaldehyde at the Serpentine Gallery in London.

Still, not all vandalism is intended: another work by Mr. Hirst on display in a Mayfair gallery in 2001 - half-full coffee cups, dirty ashtrays, beer bottles and the like - was thrown away by cleaners who mistook it for refuse. The same thing happened at Tate Britain in 2004 to a work by Gustav Metzger, a bag of trash titled "Recreation of First Public Demonstration of Auto-Destructive Art."

In the case of Mr. Pinoncelli, who could not be reached on Friday, nothing is accidental. After he urinated in and damaged "Fountain" in the Carré d'Art in Nîmes, he said he wanted to rescue the work from its inflated status and restore it to its original use as a urinal.

Since the early 1960's, Mr. Pinoncelli, based in Nice, has been busy with what he calls "les happenings de rue," or "street happenings." In 1969, he used a water pistol to spray red paint on André Malraux, who was then the French culture minister. In 1975, he "held up" a bank in Nice with a fake gun to protest Nice's decision to become Cape Town's twin city while South Africa was still under apartheid rule. The same year, he paraded outside Nice's courts, covered in large yellow stars, in what he called a homage to deported Jews.

Perhaps his most striking act unfolded in 2002 at a festival of performance art in the Colombian city of Cali. There, he protested the kidnapping of a Colombian politician, Ingrid Betancourt, by the country's leftist guerrillas by chopping off half of the smallest finger of his left hand. He then used his blood to write "FARC," the acronym of the guerrilla group (the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), on a white wall.

"The idea was to share in Colombia's violence," he told reporters at the time. But it apparently did not impress the guerrillas: Ms. Betancourt is still being held.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Slight correction for "Deceits" show info.

Good morning everyone:
Isn't it odd when a random bit of information from those long-gone school days comes in handy? Roman de la Rose (a quote from which is used to begin the Deceits and Fantasies show) does not actually translate to Romance of the Rose. I once worked on a translation of a Chaucer work of the same name and it actually means Book or Novel of the Rose... which makes sense since the quote is taken from a book. I mention this because use of the word "Romance" when introducing a tour may lead to slightly different inferences about the show's content.

Penny Grellier

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Third Thursdays Coffee and Final Fridays Lunch Dates


Hello fellow docents and interesting people,

Here are the dates for this year's get togethers.

Third Thursdays Coffee : 5:00pm+
Cutters Point Coffee = 1936 Pacific Ave (253) 272-7101
Jan 19
Feb 16
Mar 16
Apr 20
May 18
Jun 15
Jul 20
Aug 17
Sep 21
Oct 19
Nov 16
Dec 21

Final Fridays Lunch : Noon-1:00pm
India Mahal = 823 Pacific Ave (253)-272-5700
Jan 27
Feb 24
Mar 31
Apr 28
May 26
Jun 30
Jul 28
Aug 25
Sep 29
Oct 27
Nov 24
Dec 29

Hey Sanjeev,
Do you have these on one page that I can print out and stick it on my
fridge and/or my cubicle ?
Yes of course ...

Print out this doc :

http://www.sanjeev.net/2006-tam.doc

... and be there!

From time to time I'll send you gentle reminders to urge you to
reconsider your work and priorities and find to time to mingle with
your fellow friends in real face-to-face encounters.

--
Regards,
Sanjeev Narang

***

email: ask {*at*} eConsultant dot com
<a href="http://www.eConsultant.com">www.eConsultant.com</a>

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Heide will be away from Jan. 6 to 14

I am going on vacation from Friday, January 6 to Saturday, January 14. (I’ll be in London, England for my best friend’s very small wedding.)

 

If you have any issues that you need to discuss, please let me know this week. Otherwise, please try to wait until I’m back.

 

Carri is available at 272-4258 x3038 or by email at ccampbell@tacomaartmuseum.org, but she is exceptionally busy this month, so please only contact her if it is an emergency.

 

Heide Fernandez-Llamazares

Assistant Museum Educator and Docent Coordinator

hllamazares@TacomaArtMuseum.org

 

TACOMA ART MUSEUM

1701 Pacific Avenue

Tacoma, Washington 98402

T: 253.272.4258 x3018

F: 253.627.1898

www.TacomaArtMuseum.org

Become a Member Today!

 

 

Monday, January 02, 2006

I Joined MSN

   

   
   

RICHARD J SEARS has a new e-mail address.

   
    You can now reach me at rich27sears@msn.com.
    My e-mail address has changed. You can use this address to send me e-mail as well as instant messages.

Note: This message was sent at the request of RICHARD J SEARS by MSN Internet Service.

   
   

Check out the new MSN for yourself

Experience seamless browsing, fast communications and help protect your online safety, with the Internet service from Microsoft: http://www.msn.com/.

To keep in touch with instant messaging, you can download the latest version of MSN Messenger for free at: http://messenger.msn.com/.

 

   

TAM Mailing List Info : Sending Email + Signing Off


Hello Fellow Docents + Others

If you are receiving this message, then you are a current docent or a
vacationing / retired / taking-some-time-off / ex docent.

I hope if you are in the latter category, your new year's resolution
is to call Carri (253-272-4258x3038) / Heide (253-272-4258x3018) and
start attending/docenting again.

***

Emailing Others :

People on the list can send out a message to all others by simply emailing :

tamdocents@googlegroups.com

The message will automatically show up on the blog too.

http://tamdocents.blogspot.com/

***

Signing Off :

However, if you get too much email and want to get off this list, send
me an email and I'll take care of it.

--
Regards,
Sanjeev Narang

***

email: ask {*at*} eConsultant dot com
<a href="http://www.eConsultant.com">www.eConsultant.com</a>

TAM Training 2006 Schedule

Hello Fellow Docents

Happy New Year ... hopefully you partied like it was 2006 and are
either at work or still partying on a day off.

Hopefully you'll party again on Winter Volunteer Get Together
Thursday, January 5, 5-6:30 pm (Last name A to H, bring entrees I to
M, bring desserts N to R, bring salads S to Z, bring beverages.)

***

Here's the schedule for the next 45 days ... gentle reminder : you
have to attend one of the Monday / Wednesday trainings or else ...
Carri/Heide/Paula are going to call you and ahem, have a talk with
you!

I have made this the first entry on the blog for the rest of the year
... you want to check when the next training is ... check the top of
the page at :

http://tamdocents.blogspot.com/

(Add this to your bookmarks/favorites ... now!)

Training Schedule for 2006

1/4/06 (Wed) : 6-8 PM Deceits and Fantasies Intro (ES)
1/9/06 (Mon) : 10:30 AM-12:30 PM Deceits and Fantasies Intro (ES)
1/18/06 (Wed) : 6-8 PM Deceits and Fantasies Workshop (G) (Combined AM+PM)
1/25/06 (Wed) : 6-8 PM GAT Intro (ES)
1/30/06 (Mon) : 10:30 AM– 12:30 PM GAT Intro (ES)
2/6/06 (Mon) : 10:30am-12:30pm GAT workshop (G)
2/7/06 (Tue) : 6-8pm GAT workshop (G)

ES: Event Space G : Galleries

--
Regards,
Sanjeev Narang

***

email: ask {*at*} eConsultant dot com
<a href="http://www.eConsultant.com">www.eConsultant.com</a>