Believing that one thing was real only if it corresponded with others, Ray Johnson highlighted the connections between himself and famous artists such as Marcel Duchamp. The ways the two artists thought and how they shaped their lives corresponded like two elements in Johnson's collages. My study of Johnson through the lens of Duchamp allows me to discuss two highly intellectual and creative artists. I address the few direct interactions between Johnson and Duchamp as well as their mutual acquaintances who served as conduits of information, particularly in Johnson's direction. This dissertation focuses on Johnson's creative engagement with Duchamp and begins to explicate the depth and richness of that interchange. Each chapter focuses on several key works by Johnson, ranging from some of his earliest collages to what was perhaps the last work he completed. Through these works I explore the correspondences between the two artists outside of their individual works, with each chapter looking at one major theme including language, the viewer, performance, and identity. I outline the relationship between Duchamp and Johnson, using the selected collages to demonstrate how the synergy of the two artists is manifested in Johnson's work. My work sheds light on the enigmatic Johnson who has only very recently come under critical and historical investigation. By looking at Duchamp from this unique perspective I am also contributing to our understanding of one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. Most artists after Duchamp felt that they worked in his shadow but Johnson's relationship to the elder artist was different. He seems to have understood Duchamp better than almost anyone and therefore was able to selectively choose his inheritance--defining himself alongside and against Duchamp. / text

MFA thesis paper by David Dyck

I conduct a series of experiments culminating in a gallery exhibition, I Never Stopped Being A Curator, which investigate and reinterpret what it means to ‘care’ and ‘profane’ in the context of an expanded notion of curatorial practice. I call what I’m doing ‘performative micro-curating,’ a playfully performative practice with precedents dating back to Marcel Duchamp and The Richard Mutt Case. More specifically, I’m interpreting and practising performative micro-curating as a relational, meta-conceptual art practice that uses mirroring and repetition as a method for posing questions, making knowledge and forging social bonds, while, at the same time, dissolving the boundaries that customarily distinguish artmaking from curating.

In this paper I'm trying to trace, analyze and emphasize Kathy Acker’s Great Expectations and Alison Knowles’s The Big Book in regard to the books in/finite im/possibilities. I analyze them through historical changes in the books format and structure, especially ones proposed by Mallarmé, Duchamp and Fluxus. To analyze the texts more closely attention is directed to how Acker and Knowles challenge the conventional narrative, in regard to the body and language/voice and sound. I give specific emphasizes to thoughts posted by écriture féminine, while also adding Mara Lee’s temporalities in regard to body resistance and time. A final thing I do in this paper is through close reading look at contemporary material discourses. I try to examine especially two examples that open up for in/finite im/possibilities in Acker’s and Knowles’s use and references to holes and animals.

I denna uppsats undersöks katalogtexter producerade eller reproducerade av Moderna Museet i Stockholm om Pablo Picasso och Marcel Duchamp. Texterna undersöks, med utgångspunkt i museets egna påstående att konstnärerna ofta utmålas som varandras motsatser, ur ett narratologiskt perspektiv. Förekomsten av argumenterande passager, performativa yttranden, textagentens positionering samt värdering av konstnärskapen undersöks och en jämförelse görs mellan katalogerna och de två konstnärskapen. Undersökningen syftar till att ge en ingång till en förståelse för hur katalogtexter genom en aktiv narration skapar en normerande bild av konstnärskap.

I conduct a series of experiments culminating in a gallery exhibition, I Never Stopped Being A Curator, which investigate and reinterpret what it means to ‘care’ and ‘profane’ in the context of an expanded notion of curatorial practice. I call what I’m doing ‘performative micro-curating,’ a playfully performative practice with precedents dating back to Marcel Duchamp and The Richard Mutt Case. More specifically, I’m interpreting and practising performative micro-curating as a relational, meta-conceptual art practice that uses mirroring and repetition as a method for posing questions, making knowledge and forging social bonds, while, at the same time, dissolving the boundaries that customarily distinguish artmaking from curating.

This thesis considers the notion that it is the future which judges the present and that judgement is always guilty. In effect to understand modernity on its own terms one would have to inquire if we have any more right to affirm a given future than to deny one? / The question arises as follows. If a subject exists prior to the process which is its being, an uncomfortable aporia ensues. / Firstly, if being human is understood as "becoming", i.e. humans can and do appear through the enactment of change, then "being" itself is temporal. How then does this self secure its appearance other than through the very process it assumes itself to be prior to? Such a securing would imply an absolute uniformity and homogeneity not predicated on human-enacted change. If securing is in fact the aim of appearance, and therefore the operative term in judgement, what then are the consequences of action in terms of created results? / In other words, what are the consequences of the temporality of "being"? It continues to produce a world. The second question then is: how does one judge, make and act, toward a future which properly speaking, cannot be our rightful concern? / The question is approached initially through a discussion of the integral terms. In the final chapters, an attempt is made to understand the premise of Marcel Duchamp's Etant Donnes. Duchamp's work is taken as paradigmatic of making circumventing the aporia of self-revelation through becoming.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:22:30Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2007Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:08:02Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 oliveira_dg_me_ia.pdf: 962417 bytes, checksum: 517fb2982a917fb012d217514abff806 (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Trabalho crítico-criativo sobre poesia visual. O elástico conceito de ideograma norteou este trabalho. Estrutura. Movimento. Seleção e crítica. Ordenação. Justaposição. de fragmentos. Redes de associações. Conexões. Processos e não produtos acabados. Crescimento sígnico. Universo diagramático. Método heurístico. Poesia e linguagem. O texto é um diagrama, icônico. Aprofundamento. Poesia Concreta. Criou-se a personagem Rrosé Selavy Duchampignon, que relaciona poesia e Duchamp. Síntese criativa. Recorte. Colagem. Montagem. Trabalho com apropriações. Nesta dissertação-livro-de-artista também são apresentados alguns trabalhos de poesia visual. E um termo de compromisso com a arte. Registrado em cartório. / Critic-creative work about visual poetry. The elastic ideogram concept guided this work. Structure. Movement. Selection and criticism. O verplapping of fragments. Associantion networks. Connections. Processes and not finished products. Signic growth. Diagrammatic universe. Heuristic method. Poetry and language. The text is an iconic diagram. Deepening. Concrete poetry. The character Rrosé Selavy Duchampignon, relating poetry and Duchamp, was created. Creative synthesis. Cutting. Pasting. Assemblage. Work with appropriations. In this artist-book-dissertation some works of visual poetry are also presented. And an instrument of commitment whit the art. Notarized.

The research investigates the dynamic relations between sound, space and the audience perception as related to an artist’s intention. What is the relation between sound and space in the sonic arts, and to what kind of merger does it lead? What relationship exists between the intention of the composer and the perception of the audience regarding architectural and environmental spaces? Is there a common thread of perception of architectural and environmental spaces among participants? Is embodiment a key for the perception of the dynamic relations of sound and space? The framework for the investigation is based on a map of three defined spaces (Real, Virtual, and Hyperbiological) included in a portfolio of six works (three electroacoustic compositions, two sound installations, and one performance), which lead to the analysis of the perception of space, namely, the perception of architectural and environmental spaces as required by the portfolio. The original knowledge resides in the exploration of a potential common representation (space and sound perception being, of course, a personal representation) of internal perceptual spaces and mental imageries generated by the works. The act of listening plays a major role in the development of the portfolio presented and includes Pauline Oliveros’ concept of deep listening (Oliveros 2005). Sound and space are intimately related in the portfolio. One particular element emerging from this relationship is the plastic quality of sound, meaning that sound is considered and observed as a material that is shaped by space. From this perspective the research investigates the ‘sculptural’ and morphological quality of the relationship between sound and space. The results include the specific language and signature of the artworks that delineate the intersection of music and fine arts. The portfolio pays a large tribute to several iconic artists present in the outposts of sound blurred by space. Composers and artists are therefore presented in the theoretical section in order to highlight how their pioneering works have influenced and informed the present research portfolio. The analysis of the perception of the artworks relates to a methodology based on an empirical survey inspired by phenomenology.

Le présent travail vise à établir comment l’artiste français Bertrand Lavier (1949) définit et exprime le réel dans son travail. Il s’agit aussi de fournir une réponse historique et critique à l’une des thématiques-clés de l’histoire de l’art contemporain, le rapprochement entre l’art et la vie. Ainsi, nous avons abordé les séries créées par l’artiste depuis la fin des années 1960 à nos jours, d’où émergent des interrogations récurrentes : l’ontologie de la représentation, le problème de la définition de la peinture ou la sculpture, que l’artiste s’emploie à rebâtir. Il y effectue également une critique systématique du langage en tant que constituant fiable du réel, relevant ses limites, amorçant ainsi un divorce avec l’art conceptuel, paradigme dominant de l’époque, et une conversion à la volonté de rematérialisation de l’art, redonnant une bonne place à l’esthétique, au sensible, et à l’instinct, après le règne du cérébral et de l’immatériel. Ensuite, cherchant à contextualiser son travail, nous avons établi une chronologie précise de la formation de Lavier, avant de le confronter à deux grandes figures de l’histoire du siècle, chacune ayant développé une idée précise des rapports de l’art au réel, Duchamp et Warhol, ceci à fin de nous donner des éléments de réponses quant à la place historique du travail de Lavier quant à cette problématique. Enfin, nous avons associé Lavier à deux pensées, le postmodernisme et la philosophie de Nietzsche, afin d’éclairer sa vision relative et morcelée du réel, vu comme amoral et subjectif, et d’expliquer la nécessité de le réorganiser esthétiquement, actant l’art comme remède au réel chaotique et réenchantement du quotidien. / This study aims to establish how French artist Bertrand Lavier (1949) defines and expresses reality in his work. In addition, we wanted to provide a historical and critical answer to a key problematic of contemporary art's history, the link between art and life. First, we dealt with several Lavier's series, from the late 1960s till nowadays, from which emerge recurring topics : representation ontology, the problem of paintings and sculptures definition, which the artist employs himself to rebuilt. Furthermore, he also makes a methodical critic of language as a reliable component of reality, pointing its limits and flaws, acting his divorce with then dominant conceptual art, converting himself to the rematerilization of art, bringing back aesthetics, perception and instinct, after the reign of immateriality and intellectualism. Then, trying to contextualize his work, we established a detailed chronology of the artist's education, before confronting him with two 20th Century key figures, both having developed a strong vision of connections between art and reality, Duchamp and Warhol, in order to precise the historical place of Lavier's work regarding this topic. Eventually, we linked Lavier to two thinkings, Postmodernism and Nietzsche's philosophy, allowing us to shade light on his vision of a relative and fragmented reality, seen as amoral and subjective, and to explain the necessity of its aesthetical reorganization, presenting art as the remedy of a chaotic reality, and the everydays re-enchantement.