Duchamp After Hegel: Preparatory Remarks

Hannah Höch, Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Beer-Belly of the Weimar Republic (1919)

Collage of pasted papers, 90 x 144 cm

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Our larger argument that Duchamp exemplifies Hegel’s theory of art’s dissolution must be framed by some preparatory remarks about the special challenges to interpretation presented by the Lectures on Fine Art.  For one thing, the Knox translation of Hegel’s notes requires special hermeneutic caution, not least because the text consists of edited lectures and is therefore filtered through the perceptions and concerns of the note takers and the editor.  The key interpretation of Hegel’s philosophy of art within the English-speaking world, then, bears a particularly complex and vexing relationship to the thought of Hegel.  We must also explain the importance of referring to the dissolution of art rather than the “end of art,” a simple but vital correction to the numerous misinterpretations of the Lectures that circulate throughout the secondary literature.  Finally, in preparation for the main argument, we will develop a way of reading Hegel’s philosophy of art within the context of his whole system.  All of this is necessary in order to revise the way that the “end of art” thesis is currently located within Lectures on Fine Art.