From
a Hegelian perspective, Duchamp’s place in the development of the contemporary
involves a synthesis of the satiric and ironic modes of art’s previous moments
of dissolution. A Hegelian understanding
of satire and irony, which are the specific forms taken by the dissolution of
Classical and Christian art, will allow us to grasp historically, as a
replaying and a synthesis of art’s previous dissolutions, the meaning of the
peculiar narcissism, hermeticism and emptiness that afflict the contemporary
artworld. That reading reworks the theme of art’s dissolution into an analytic
tool, and saves the concept of “the end of art” from being a mere slogan, one charged
with nostalgia and despair, but of little value as a term of art-historical and
aesthetic understanding. Once we address art in terms a systematic reading of Hegel’s
Lectures, we’ll finally be able to apply
Hegel’s concept of art’s dissolution to the contemporary artworld by
historically grasping the advent of Marcel Duchamp as a replaying of the moment
of art’s dissolution. For better or for
worse, it is in large part Duchamp’s synthesis of the satirical and ironic dissolutions
of art that define contemporary art. The
revised Hegelian approach that emerges is not merely critical of the
contemporary, however, but is also equipped to understand and appreciate it,
prepared to retain its most valuable possibilities, and thereby able to remain
hopeful about what lies beyond.[1]
[1]. Duchamp’s “Rotorelief”
disc (1923) from http://wnycradiolab.tumblr.com/post/32671593449/marcel-duchamp-rotoreliefs-duchamp-recognized
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