<snipped from> from reiner strasser
‘in my view
the responsibility of 'big museums'
is not only the presentation of art but its
function is also a mediative - to make art
communicable.
(to be a mediator of/for art - not only an agent of art)
like the artist 'has to' serve the society
the art institutes 'have to' serve the art
(and therefore the society - [thru] culture).’
May I just insert the famous Marcel Duchamp dialogue in Peirre Bourdieu's
essay
'The production of belief', in The Field of Cultural Production
into this discussion....
Q. But to come back to your ready-mades, I thought that the R. Mutt,
the signature on
the Fountain, was the manufacturer's name. But in the
article by Rosalind Krauss, I read:
'R. Mutt, a pun on the German, Armut, or poverty', ‘poverty’ would
entirely change the
meaning of The Fountain.
M.D. Rosalind Krauss? The redhead? It isn't that at
all. You can deny it.
Mutt comes from Mutt Works, the name of the big firm that makes sanitary
equipment.
But Mott was too close, so I made it Mutt, because there was a strip
cartoon in the
papers those days, Mutt and Jeff, everybody knew it. So right from
the start
there was a resonance. Mutt was a fat little guy, and Jeff was tall
and thin ...
I wanted a different name. And I added Richard ... Richard is a
good name for a loo!
You see, it's the opposite of poverty ... But not even that, just R. - R.
Mutt.
Q. What possible interpretation is there of the Bicycle
Wheel? Should one see it
as the integration of movement into the work of art? Or as a
fundamental point
of departure, like the Chinese who invented the wheel?
MD. That machine has no intention, except to get rid of the
appearance of a work of art.
It was a whim, I didn't call it a work of art. I wanted to throw
off the desire to
create works of art. Why do works of art have to be static?
The thing - the bicycle wheel - came before the idea. Without ant
intention of
making a song and dance about it, not at all so as to say 'I did that,
and
nobody has ever done it before me.' Besides, the originals have
never been sold.
Q. What about the geometry book left out in the weather? Can one
say
that it's the idea of integrating time and space? With a pun on
'geometrie
dans l'espace' (solid geometry) and 'temps', the rain and the sun that
transforms the book?
MD. No, no more than the idea of integrating movement and
sculpture.
It was a joke. A pure joke. To denigrate the solemnity of a
book of principles.
**********************************
Where do we, AS MEDIATORS OF ART, (be it new or old media) as curators,
reporters, journalists, critics, ethnographers, museum interpreters serve
art best? By authoring an inspiring, subjective yet fictitious new
reality in the interpretation of the work or as facilitators of the work
where we simply find a way to allow the art to have its own voice?
Susan Hazan
Jerusalem/London
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Susan Hazan - Curator of New Media Education Unit
Head of Internet Office - The Israel Museum, Jerusalem
http://www.imj.org.il
Tel: 972 2 6708066
Fax: 972 2 6708077 Tel
(direct): 972 2 5618224 http://www.imj.org.il/shazan
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