OwnReality ( ) Publication of the research project “OwnReality. To Each His Own Reality. The notion of the real in the fine arts of France, West Germany, East Germany and Poland, - ”
Antje Kramer-Mallordy
To Live History or Let it Die: Historiographic Strategies of Figuration Narrative
Translated from the French by Sarah Tooth Michelet
Editor: Mathilde Arnoux Chief editor: Clément Layet Assistant managing editor: Sira Luthardt Layout: Jacques-Antoine Bresch
Recommended citation: Antje Kramer-Mallordy, “To Live History or Let it Die: Historiographic Strategies of Figuration Narrative”, OwnReality ( ), , online, URL: http://www.perspectivia.net/publikationen/ownreality/ / kramer-mallordy-en
Editor : http://www.own-reality.org/
Text published under Creative Commons Licence CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0. Images are not available under Creative Commons, see copyright below each figure. OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY
To Live History or Let it Die: Historiographic Strategies of Figuration Narrative
Antje Kramer-Mallordy
“Reality must be fictionalised in order to be thought about.” Jacques Rancière
“Murdering an old man is an ugly thing and, despite appearances, not an act one commits lightly.” These are the introductory words to the tract written by Gilles Aillaud, Eduardo Arroyo and Antonio Recalcati that was handed out at the opening of an exhibition held on October , which included their collaborative work Vivre et laisser mourir ou la fin tragique de Marcel Duchamp [Live and Let Die, or the Tragic End of Marcel Duchamp ] (fig. ). For this exhibition entitled La Figuration narrative dans l’art contemporain [Figuration Narrative in Contemporary Art ] the art critic Gérald Gassiot-Talabot presented, in a series of adjoining rooms at the Galerie Creuze in Paris, works by sixty-eight international artists who, in his view, revealed “a new way of experiencing temporality”. At a time when pop art had effectively ennobled the fetishisation of the object and the nouveau réaliste movement had, through the writings of the art critic Pierre Restany, taken the form of an optimistic consensus between art and society, these painters, according to Gassiot-Talabot, strove to extricate themselves from a purely tautological relationship with reality in order to make painting a “vehicle for action” that was capable, albeit in a limited way, of intervening in history. By taking a closer look at the series of paintings that comprise Vivre et laisser mourir ou la fin tragique de Marcel Duchamp and the tract that accom - panied the exhibition, it is possible to identify the implications of this programmatic approach to art that was driven by a desire to shake up the prevailing social order, with “culture” – seen as an institutional agent of bourgeois values – as its primary target. In an era when socialist realism OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY
Gilles Aillaud, Eduardo Arroyo and Antonio Recalcati, Vivre et laisser mourir ou la fin tragique de Marcel Duchamp , , series of eight oil paintings on canvas, × cm and × cm, Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sophia . © ADAGP ( ) ruled the arts in some Eastern European states and painting had been declared dead many times over in Western countries, these artists para - doxically chose representational painting as their weapon in their anti- cultural campaign. Spurred into action by an urgent need to react to the social and commercial celebration generated by the abstract movements and neo-Dada practices, they specifically returned to representational subject matter in order to maintain a connection with the “real”. Their aim was not simply to capture reality in order to observe it, but rather to study it according to a deliberate strategy woven around their political convic - tions, which culminated in a fictional narrative. To achieve this, Aillaud, Arroyo and Recalcati adopted the garb of revolutionaries – so dear to the avant-gardes – whose intervention in history required the ability to con - vey an authentic socio-political message. In Gassiot-Talabot they found their first historiographer. From the first group exhibitions of the figuration narrative painters, Gassiot-Talabot spared no effort to ensure that the movement was recorded OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY as historically significant. In a text published in , he reiterated the importance of the narrative function of art as a fundamental and “logi - cal” stage in a historical process that ties art to political engagement:
“This is the continuation of a logical development that, from the time of its initial stirrings in and , has confirmed the existence of a language of temporalisation and “narration” that naturally led to the interaction of the painter with society, and consequently with history that was taking place. ”
That same year, Daniel Buren, another rebellious figure in the French art scene (at least from the time of his first artistic “demonstrations” pre - sented at the Salon de la Jeune Peinture in Paris in ) further under - lined the active role of the artist in history and his potential to act as a political and historical agent:
“We write that we must “deconstruct” art history because it has been falsely or arbitrarily imposed upon us, and in doing so we make no allowances for those who create the art history we condemn – that is, the artists. This art history is the work of historians and critics, but also – and especially, we believe – of the “creators” who themselves facilitate this seemingly logical (too logical) progression of things, as well as the censoring of essential questions. ”
In this scathing text, Buren calls for a critical rewriting of art history based on the power of artists to construct the “seemingly logical pro - gression of things” that we call history. Like Gassiot-Talabot, Buren con - sidered that artists had a responsibility towards history, which he felt was more often than not misdirected because artists never truly broke with existing art movements, doing nothing more than simply acknowledg - ing their legitimacy, thus helping to perpetuate them in accordance with the narrative paradigms of art history. Given that the practice of many of the figuration narrative painters was largely informed by the legacy of the avant-garde’s call for a radical rejec - tion of the past, as well as the present in the sense that it was defined by a dominant discourse and approach to art (in this period, the superiority of pop art and nouveau réalisme in the marketplace), the resulting vacuum demanded the formulation of a new historiography, for which these artists did not hesitate to create their own fictions. This historiography, OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY according to Gassiot-Talabot, required the capacity to alter “history as it happens” or, as Buren claimed, to “deconstruct” it. Indeed, in the exam - ple we are discussing here, there was an underlying conflict between two different histories that were being written almost simultaneously: one belonging to the new generation of artists, including the figuration nar - rative painters, and the other to representatives of the historic avant-garde movements who were still active, with Duchamp seen as their guiding light. However, the fact remains that despite the artist’s power to rewrite history – through his actions, his works and his writings – his effective - ness can only be relative due to the complexity of the issues and protag - onists that participate in the process of historicisation, in which certain “fictions” ultimately dominate at the expense of others.
Towards a “dynamic shift in the balance between the real and the possible”
Let us take as a starting point Gassiot-Talabot’s introductory text to the exhibition catalogue in order to clarify the programmatic frame - work of this event, at which the apparent affinities between the con - tributing artists’ intentions were shattered on the evening of the opening when viewers discovered the polyptych Vivre et laisser mourir . At this time, in the early-mid s, it was not easy to earn a place in the exclusive ranks of Parisian art criticism. Unlike his colleagues Pierre Restany and Michel Ragon, whose political convictions were founded on the preservation of the status quo of the Gaullist republic, Gassiot-Talabot made this new generation of representational painting his pet project, setting it in oppo - sition, on one side, to the highly individualistic introspection of abstract painting and, on the other, to the glorification of the “grammar” of objects seen in the nouveaux réalistes led by Restany. From the time of the exhibition he curated the previous year, in , at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris entitled Mythologies quotidiennes (if not earlier), Gassiot- Talabot set out to adopt the stance of a historian who interprets the present day in relation to the past, even going so far as to propose the existence of a vast continuum stretching from the origins of humanity to the most recent tendencies in painting. His text begins with a linear chronology whose legitimacy is backed up by rhetorical argumentation, with the presentation of a quick succession of examples ranging from the earliest cave paintings to ancient Egyptian art, leading up to the Renaissance and the th century. In the opening lines, he declares: OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY
“The initial act of possession of the universe accomplished by the thinking being was not only the imprint of his hand or the represen - tation of the wild animals he depended on, but also the depiction of highly evocative scenes expressing his beliefs, his conditions of sur - vival and his rivalries with his fellow men to gain control over the environment. ”
Such rivalry with one’s fellow men was clearly as relevant for mankind in as it was at the dawn of time, as was the struggle to “gain control over the environment”, which invariably revolves around violence and dom - ination – and the antagonisms of the cold war and the highly-publicised conflict of the Vietnam War are but two major historical markers of the time. However, the emergence of this new artistic experience of tempo - rality benefited primarily from what Gassiot-Talabot described as the con - fluence of “two vectors of contemporary imagery” that were endowed with a “magical power”, namely the cinema and comic books, both of which were grounded in popular culture and employed storytelling devices to rep - resent the development of actions and events unfolding in time. Gassiot- Talabot’s insistence on the concept of “narrative” allowed him to neatly sidestep the highly-charged debates over the realist movements, which at the time had become weakened or instrumentalised and had already shaken up European art criticism in the s, to focus instead on the revitali - sation of the capabilities of painting. Keenly aware of the danger of polit - ically-engaged realist painting falling into propaganda, he also chose not to evoke the thorny questions raised by the various communist positions championed by most of the painters exhibited at the Galerie Creuze in , who subscribed to a diverse combination of Marxism-Leninism, Trotskyism and Maoism, although none embraced the doctrine of socialist realism imposed in the Soviet Union. On this subject, Gassiot-Talabot’s archives from the exhibition include a fragment of text (fig. ) presumably from a typewritten draft for a publication, in which the critic makes a clear ref - erence to this tension between opposing positions:
“In a rather cruel paradox, we are in danger of witnessing a rehabili - tation of propaganda art, that is, socialist realism, by some of the young avant-garde painters at the same time as the artistic representatives of the People’s Democracies are struggling to have a form of non-repre - sentational painting, a pale imitation of surrealism, accepted in their own countries. Some of these painters, on returning from Moscow, have told OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY
Gérald Gassiot-Talabot, fragment of a typescript with handwritten corrections by the author, Archives of Gérald Gassiot-Talabot, folder entitled “La Figuration narrative dans l’art contemporain, ”, GIS Archives de la Critique d’Art, Rennes © GIS Archives de la Critique d’Art, Rennes
me of their sense of both shock and fascination at the sight of thousands of large-scale paintings displayed at exhibition halls. ”
Significantly, this passage was struck through by the author, revealing a practice of self-censoring that he only partially abandoned in subsequent articles published from the late s. For instance, in his conclusion to another text entitled La Figuration narrative ( ), realism receives only a fleeting mention, although it is not lacking in innuendo: “The possi - bilities of the narrative image that we have only briefly evoked in this chap - ter find in realism their beginning and their end, their birth and their death .” During this period, “realism” had not only become a vicious cir - cle for painting, but it was also an ongoing battlefield for Parisian art crit - ics. Despite the shifts in perspective brought to debates on socialist realism from the second half of the s by the new generation of communists personified by René Garaudy and Pierre Hervé, clashes continued between “politically engaged” (in other words, communist) realism, which ran OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY
Pierre Restany, “Les yéyés ont jeté le masque” (extract), Planète , No. , January-February , p. the risk of dogmatic instrumentalisation, and the “new” vision of nou - veau realisme with its underlying Gaullist stance and theoretical frame - work that was promoted by Restany from . In reaction to the scandal caused by Aillaud, Arroyo and Recalcati, Restany did not shy away from denigrating the views championed by Gassiot-Talabot, directing his attack at his interpretation of “realism” (fig. ):
“This expressionist realism, with its guttural and vulgar overtones, is – we are told – narrative. It is certainly verbose and rambling. What OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY
is it trying to recount? Morality tales with a farcical twist. After social - ist realism, we now have plain social realism. The yéyé pop genera - tion is showing its true colours. ”
Unsurprisingly, Gassiot-Talabot did not dwell on the notion of “real - ism” in his introduction to the exhibition La Figuration dans l’art contemporain , preferring the term “narrative revival”, which gave artists the chance to distance themselves from the tautological logic of the factual recording of reality endorsed by nouveau réalisme (which Gassiot-Talabot, in turn, harshly condemned) and embrace a “dynamic shift in the balance between the real and the possible, between the material and the imagi - nary, between that which is endured and that which is desired”. The nar - rative form, as an effective tool of historicisation, thus came to the rescue of the concept of “realism”, which had been rendered meaningless. As he explained, “It is up to him [the artist] to choose the role he adopts as a witness of history: either to celebrate an adventure with which he wishes to identify or to reject a particular system, a possible future or an outcome that he denounces for ethical or political reasons.” In this way, he defended the importance of intentionality in pictorial conception by focusing on its narrative qualities, which had the power to restore paint - ing’s performative function and bring about this “dynamic shift in the balance between the real and the possible”.
Revealing truth… through fiction
Of all the works in the exhibition, Vivre et laisser mourir ou la fin tragique de Marcel Duchamp [Live and Let Die, or the Tragic End of Marcel Duchamp ] provides the most potent illustration of this interventionist role of nar - rative – a strategy fuelled by an ambition to transform the relationship between the real and the possible, the past and the future. At a time when tributes to Duchamp were all the rage, particularly among artists labelled as “neo-Dada”, those who rebelled against the order imposed by the father of the ready-made were few and far between. Among exceptions was the critical engagement, in itself pioneering, expressed by Joseph Beuys in an action he performed in in front of the cam - eras of Germany’s second largest public broadcaster, ZDF, entitled Marcel Duchamp’s Silence is Overrated [Das Schweigen von Marcel Duchamp wird überbewertet ]. OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY
Vivre et laisser mourir comprises eight oil paintings each standing . metres high, forming an imposing narrative frieze that recalls the tradi - tional role of painting as a representation of action and the sequential narrative format of altarpieces. The ensemble features a cool palette and a realistic approach with a deliberately sanitised style. According to the trio of painters, for the work to be effective it was essential to avoid becoming entangled in aesthetic pretensions that could undermine its discursive intention, which was, in the words of Gilles Aillaud, no less than the “historic revelation of truth.” Inspired by revolutionary ambitions, they wished to explore the power of painting as an instrument capable of influencing the destiny of the world. This view is explained by Carole Talon-Hugon in a recent essay on the effectiveness of painting:
“What makes a pictorial image effective is its iconic rather than its artistic dimension. This does not mean that the social and political impact of art is its ultimate validation, nor that a work is only artistic if its sole function is aesthetic and its only purpose contemplative. ”
This rejection of an individualistic style in order to concentrate on the power of discourse is also seen the artists’ insistence on their work’s activist purpose through the distribution of their tract that was intended to be read as a manifesto, written by Aillaud and signed by all three artists. With a story recounted in five sequences, punctuated by three copies of well-known works by the inventor of the ready-made produced in col - laboration with Fabio Rieti, Gérard Fromanger and Francis Biras, this Tragic End of Marcel Duchamp is revealed to be a premeditated murder, both tongue-in-cheek and wilfully obnoxious, in which the artists are both narrators and perpetrators. The artists’ main source of reference for Duchamp’s work was Robert Lebel’s book Sur Marcel Duchamp , the first French monograph on the artist, which had the advantage of con - taining colour plates, while the first part of the title, Live and Let Die , was inspired by the world of crime fiction, since the second James Bond novel was published under this title, Vivre et laisser mourir , in France in (having originally been published in under a different title ). The tragedy begins with a copy of Nude Descending a Staircase, No . from , a work that marks the culmination of Duchamp’s cubist analy - sis and signals the beginning of his deconstruction of painting in gen - eral. The second painting shows a low-angle view of a man in a grey suit walking up a staircase. We can sense the heaviness in his footsteps from OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY his hunched posture and his head straining forwards, with his laboured upward movement set in direct opposition to the image on the first panel. To the three painters, Nude Descending a Staircase signified Duchamp’s break with painting to pursue a nominalist approach via his “objects with inscriptions”. They explained their viewpoint in their tract:
“The progression from the cubist object entirely constructed by the fun - damental action of the painter to the industrial object that was merely touched, as if from a distance, by a signature entails no transcendence of the traditionally demiurgic notion of the “creative act”. […] How can we not have understood that to “prefer the personality that chooses things over the personality that fabricates things” is just to take another step towards the exaltation of the omnipotence and ideality of the cre - ative act?”
Therein lies the motive for their crime, the accusation they saw as jus - tification for putting an end to Duchamp once and for all, as they pro - nounced him guilty of an excessive individualism that had turned him into a double agent for the avant-garde, both a hostage and, even worse, a sup - porter of bourgeois culture who had only added to the “double fiction of the autonomy of art and the freedom of creativity.” On the following painting we witness the man in the grey suit being beaten up, his face showing a clear resemblance to Duchamp. He is held tightly by a man in a pink shirt with a cigarette dangling from his lips (Recalcati), while another man in a blue shirt (Arroyo) punches him in the face, with the force of the blow appearing to knock the victim’s head backwards, his features distorted in pain. In the background, a third man wearing glasses and holding a cigarette in his right hand (Aillaud) leans casually against a wall, observing the scene. The shortened perspective of the grey space reveals a bare room with no furnishings, just a single, rather curious, window on the upper third of the far wall – resembling a painting within a painting. This miniature French window with eight small panes immediately recalls Duchamp’s Fresh Widow that was attrib - uted to his female alter ego Rrose Sélavy. The link established in the first two panels between Duchamp’s oeuvre and the fiction created by Aillaud and his accomplices through the figure descending and climbing a stair - case is further intensified in the third and subsequent panels. Set within this claustrophobic composition, the presence of this work, which was originally commissioned by Duchamp to be constructed by a carpenter OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY in New York, both establishes a connection with the past – Duchamp’s practice – and, with dark irony, prophesies the artist’s tragic destiny through the title’s pun on the term “French window”, as he was to leave behind him a “young widow”. On the fourth panel, the viewer discovers a close-up image of a uri - nal inclined at an angle of degrees mounted on a green tiled wall. A faithful reproduction of Duchamp’s Fountain , a work that was censored by the New York Society of Independent Artists in , it bears the legible signature of “R. Mutt”. Here, however, the ready-made, which had been elevated to the status of icon by the avant-garde, is returned to its original purpose as a piece of sanitary ware. Indeed, as Aillaud wrote in their tract, after being “sanitised at birth”, the ready-made had been sanctified by the museum setting. The museum, which was a familiar subject of avant-garde discourse – in , Marinetti condemned muse - ums as “cemeteries” and “public dormitories” – was once again violently rejected as the site of legitimisation for artistic production by the enfants terribles of the Salon de la Jeune Peinture. According to Aillaud, Arroyo and Recalcati, “this sanctuary [the museum] is a morgue where the gods sleep in an advanced state of metamorphosis, odourless, where the smell of the urinal, appropriately signed, will smell no more.” Furthermore, the reference to Fountain allowed them to draw attention to their ideal of collective work: “If we want art to cease to be individual, it is better not to sign works” , they claimed – as opposed to signing works with - out working, as they accused Duchamp of doing. Directly following the scene of physical intimidation, this cold, bleak room dedicated to organic waste disposal reinforces the violent mood of the pictorial narrative by con - juring up images reminiscent of torture scenes in basements and bathrooms in crime novels and films noirs. The fifth painting presents the four protagonists in a room lit by nat - ural light from a French window. Duchamp, shown in profile, is seated in an armchair, clearly exhausted, with his eyes closed and his head lean - ing forwards as though asleep or unconscious. Standing facing him is Arroyo, who observes his two associates as Aillaud lights a cigarette for Recalcati. In the foreground in front of the armchair is a table on which is placed a piece of black fabric, possibly a coat, and next to it is a red and blue heart-shaped object. Once again, a Duchamp work is directly ref - erenced by the artists and reset in a different temporality. Dating from , Duchamp’s Coeurs Volants [Fluttering Hearts ] is a collage work that was commissioned by Christian Zervos for the cover of the magazine Cahiers OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY d’art. It is composed of superimposed contrasting red and blue heart shapes that trigger an optical effect of motion, a sensation of quivering likened to the palpitations of romantic desire. This work was addition - ally reproduced as a silk-screen print for the exhibition Bewogen Beweging curated by Pontus Hultén and Wilhelm Sandberg in at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam – one of the first events to present the work of Marcel Duchamp in Europe since . In our pictorial narrative, however, the presence of the two- toned, two-dimensional heart – a surprisingly amorphous splash of colour in a composition of such glacial clarity – becomes, as was the case with Fresh Widow , a subtle metaphor for the future awaiting its creator through the stylised representation of a heart that stops beating, or perhaps flut - ters away. The Large Glass appears as a final narrative element in the series, build - ing suspense before the action concludes. Together with Nude Descending a Staircase , it provides a structure for the series as these were the first and last major works produced by Duchamp (at that time people were unaware of the posthumous surprise awaiting them with Étant Donnés ). Here too, the direction of action in Duchamp’s work is reversed: while his bach - elors propel their bride into the infinite realm of the sky, unable to bring her back, the painting that comes after it depicts the master falling to his death. And so we reach the climax of the story in the seventh canvas: an act of murder, as Duchamp is pushed down the stairs. The fact that Aillaud has not yet replaced his foot on the step after the act heightens the viewer’s impression of unwittingly witnessing an instant just seconds after the crime was committed. Duchamp’s naked body, sprawled head first on the very stairs he had climbed in the second panel, expresses the vulnerability of a helpless and emasculated victim, with his crotch masked by a broad brush - stroke. His helplessness is magnified by the low angle of view, with his life - less body in the foreground while in the background his persecutors look down at him from the staircase. It is as if the painter-story-tellers had anticipated the vehement reaction to their work as the viewer’s empathy is directed towards the victim rather than the assailants, exposing a cold and calculated brutality that dovetailed with their desire to destabilise institu - tional art. In this way, the intensity of the backlash from critics and the art establishment was exactly what the artists had hoped to elicit. The eighth and final panel serves as an epilogue addressing American imperialism during the cold war, featuring a tightly-framed scene in OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY
Handwritten declaration signed by Aillaud, Arroyo and Recalcati, dated September , Archives of Gérald Gassiot-Talabot, folder entitled “La Figuration narrative dans l’art contemporain, ”, GIS Archives de la Critique d’Art, Rennes . © GIS Archives de la Critique d’Art, Rennes which a coffin draped with an American flag is being carried by seven high-ranking military officers, all dressed in parade uniforms. Among them we can recognise some of the leading exponents of American pop art and French nouveau réalisme: Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg, Martial Raysse, Andy Warhol, Pierre Restany and Arman. According to Aillaud, Arroyo and Recalcati, they represented the loyal disciples of Duchampian individualism, whose survival depended on an art practice that was dictated by market forces and “unburdened by the contentions of the past”, an “art of participation”. Given these circumstances, it is understandable that “leaving what is already dead to die is not as simple as it seems”, as they wrote in their tract. OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY
Surpassed by the “Master of the Fictive”
The reception of these artists’ endeavour to rewrite history thus lived up to their expectations. But while their strategy for sparking a revolt to pave the way for a new revolutionary art was certainly seen and heard, the effectiveness of their fictitious assassination ultimately only served to consolidate the position in favour of Duchamp. A far cry from the hero status enjoyed by James Bond, to which they explicitly referred, the artists behind Vivre et laisser mourir , in wishing to impose a radical break with art history, found themselves judged as mediocre “louts” when measured against the art historical canon sanctioned by the avant-garde move - ments, which was still being defined in this period. Without wishing to focus on the ramifications of the scandal – which ranged from Niki de Saint Phalle’s decision to withdraw her work from the exhibition to the signing of two petitions and calls to censor the work – we can briefly summarise the tone of the heated response: for Pierre Léonard from Le Nouvel Observateur , it was a case of “Latin fascism”, while Otto Hahn from Art International saw the work as “schoolboy tomfoolery” and Pierre Restany, in the journal Planète (fig. ), viewed it as a “vulgarity from the slums”. As for the master of the “infra-thin” himself, Duchamp’s reac - tion was brilliant as, true to form, he played down the importance of the affair by advising the gallery owner not to remove the work as it would only aggravate the problem. During this era, the historicisation of Duchamp’s practice rivalled that of Picasso’s, with a series of exhibitions and publications dedicated to both artists. This dualism reached its peak between and with the celebration of the th anniversary of Dada – in which Duchamp played the leading role – and the th birthday of Picasso, the pioneer of cubism. As for Recalcati, Arroyo and Aillaud, their allegiance clearly lay with the creator of Guernica . Indeed, the s were marked by a pre - occupation with tracing lines of artistic heritage, and it was ultimately Duchamp who dominated. In the historiography of this period, one enlightening episode notably stands out. In the late s, as the critics Pierre Restany and Pierre Cabanne were collaborating on a review of the avant-garde in the th century, a monumental volume that was pub - lished in entitled L’Avant-garde au XX e siècle , Restany rejected his co-author’s suggestion of using Cézanne as their starting point, declaring that “it would be better to start with Duchamp”. While Jean Clair, in his essay on the The Large Glass , relegated Picasso to the role of OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY
“false prophet”, it was the posthumous Duchamp retrospective – which was selected by Pontus Hultén as the inaugural exhibition of the Centre Georges Pompidou in – that became the defining moment in this battle to articulate the narrative of modernism around a symbolic fig - urehead. Twelve years after the scandal triggered by Vivre et laisser mourir ou la fin tragique de Marcel Duchamp and in the aftermath of , when the last of art’s social ambitions had been shattered and replaced by a sense of resigned disillusionment, Marcel Duchamp, the great Master of the Fictive , once again emerged as the winner, seeming to remain under the pro - tection of the epitaph on his gravestone in the Rouen cemetery: “Besides, it’s always the others who die”. Translated from the French by Sarah TOOTH MICHELET OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY
This essay grew out of a presentation made for a radical rupture with the past in his pref - at the International Meeting entitled ace to the exhibition: “And the ungrate - “Reality(ies), Fiction and Utopia in the Art of ful generations who seek to plunder the France, West Germany, East Germany and citadels of their elders continually break down Poland between and ” held at the the foundations to build their own edifices. Centre allemand d’histoire de l’art in Paris, This is a valuable ingratitude without which from - April , organised by Mathilde art history would be no more than a process Arnoux and Clara Pacquet as part of the ERC of obedience and ossification!”, Gassiot- Starting Grant research project “OwnReality”. Talabot, (note ), p. . It is precisely these two opposing poles that Jacques Rancière, Le Partage du sensible , Paris, serve as a basis for discussion in the critic’s La Fabrique, , p. . On the following introductory text, “Mythologies quotidi - page, Rancière explains that “Politics and ennes” from , ibid ., p. . art, like knowledge, construct fictions – that Gassiot-Talabot mentions the term “art his - is to say, tangible rearrangements of symbols tory” numerous times in this text. For exam - and images, of the connections between what ple: “It is now a temporary necessity that we see and what we say, between what we obliges us to choose a particular role as his - do and what we can do.” torians with regard to an art that is still evolv - Gilles Aillaud, Eduardo Arroyo, Antonio ing […]. It is not the least of the paradoxes Recalcati, “Vivre et laisser mourir ou la fin of this new experience of temporality that it tragique de Marcel Duchamp”, signed tract, forces us to consider the present and the October , reprinted in Didier Ottinger, future according to categories of the past”, ed., Gilles Aillaud. La jungle des villes , Arles, ibid ., p. . Actes Sud, , pp. - . Ibid ., p. . Gérald Gassiot-Talabot, “La Figuration nar - Ibid . rative dans l’art contemporain”, preface by See, in particular, Harriet Weber-Schäfer, Gérald Gassiot-Talabot, La Figuration narra - Die Kontroverse um Abstraktion und Figuration tive , Jean-Luc Chalumeau, ed., exh. cat. Paris, in der französischen Malerei nach , Cologne, Galerie Creuze, Nîmes, Éditions Jacqueline Wienand, . Chambon, , p. . Archives of Gérald Gassiot-Talabot, frag - Gérald Gassiot-Talabot, “Mythologies quo - ment conserved in the folder “La Figuration tidiennes, Figuration narrative, peinture poli - narrative dans l’art contemporain, ”, GIS tique”, , reprinted in Gassiot-Talabot, Archives de la Critique d’Art, Rennes. (note ), p. . See, for example, “Tchécoslovaquie, un dos - Daniel Buren, “Repères”, , reprinted sier arts”, in Opus International , December in Écrits ( - ), Vol. , Paris, Flam - , No. , p. ; “Aperçu sur la critique marion, , p. . d’art soviétique”, in Opus International , In a striking resonance with the work of May , No. - , pp. - . Aillaud, Arroyo and Recalcati, Buren also Gassiot-Talabot, (note ), pp. - . attacks Marcel Duchamp in this text, declar - Pierre Restany, “Les yéyés ont jeté le ing that he offered only an “illusion of rup - masque”, Planète , No. , January-February ture”: “He who wished to destroy the art , p. . [Translator’s note: The term object actually perpetuates it in the most “Yéyé” is derived from the English expres - aggravating and conservative manner possi - sion “Yeah! Yeah!” and refers to a style of ble.”, ibid ., pp. - . French pop music that became a cultural phe - The views presented in this essay echo, on nomenon in the s. ] several levels, those expressed in Richard Gassiot-Talabot, (note ), p. . Leeman’s salutary book, Le Critique, l’Art et Ibid ., pp. - . l’Histoire. De Michel Ragon à Jean Clair For a highly insightful analysis of this work, (Rennes, Presses Universitaires de Rennes, which complements this essay in many ), which examines the context of art respects, see Cécile Debray, “Donner davan - criticism in France in the s in terms of tage à penser. Vivre et laisser mourir ou la fin its contribution to a historiography that was tragique de Marcel Duchamp ”, in Ottinger, ed., in the process of being written and its capac - (note ), pp. - . ity to construct and deconstruct myths. Gilles Aillaud, in the Bulletin d’information n° Gassiot-Talabot underscored the necessity du Salon de la jeune peinture , Paris, June , OWNREALITY ( ), A. KRAMER -MALLORDY
quoted by Jean-Paul Ameline in “Aux sources Figuration narrative dans l’art contemporain, de la Figuration narrative”, in Figuration nar - release the organisers of the aforementioned rative. Paris - , Jean-Paul Ameline, ed., exhibition from all moral and legal responsi - exh. cat. Paris, Réunion des Musées Natio - bility in the case of legal action and assume naux/Centre Georges Pompidou, , p. . responsibility for all consequences of their Carole Talon-Hugon, “L’efficace dans la work.” Archives of Gérald Gassiot-Talabot, peinture”, Noesis , No. : Art et politique , folder entitled “La Figuration narrative dans Nice, Centre de Recherche d’Histoire des l’art contemporain, ”, GIS Archives de la Idées (CRHI), , p. . Critique d’Art, Rennes. Aillaud, Arroyo and Recalcati, in Ottinger, Gilles Aillaud, Arroyo and Recalcati, in ed., (note ), pp. - . Ottinger, ed., (note ), p. . Paris, Trianon, . Restany, (note ). The title of the first French translation of Ian A letter from Gassiot-Talabot to Niki de Saint Fleming’s book was Requins et services secrets Phalle, dated October , refers to Niki (Sharks and Secret Services ), Paris, Presses de Saint Phalle’s wish to protest against the Internationales, “Inter-Espions” series, polyptych by Aillaud, Arroyo and Recalcati: (original English edition: Live and Let Die , “I do not bear you any ill will for your with - London, Jonathan Cape, ). drawal of Bonnes Femmes , and […] your reac - Aillaud, Arroyo and Recalcati, in Ottinger, tion, which is strictly emotional, is one of ed., (note ), p. . the few I respect.” Archives of Gérald Aillaud, Arroyo and Recalcati, quoted by Gassiot-Talabot, folder entitled “La Figuration Jean-Luc Chalumeau, La Figuration narrative : narrative dans l’art contemporain, ”, GIS , Paris, Éditions du Cercle d’art, , Archives de la Critique d’Art, Rennes. p. . In their tract, their critique of bour - For further details on the criticism of the geois morality was embodied in the fictitious exhibition mentioned here, see exh. cat. figure of Monsieur Perrichon, the main char - Paris, (note ), pp. - , and the arti - acter from Le Voyage de Monsieur Perrichon, cle by Cécile Debray in Ottinger, ed., a comedy in four acts written by Eugène (note ), pp. - . Labiche and Édouard Martin in . Pierre Cabanne, Entretiens avec Marcel Fresh Widow , , miniature French win - Duchamp , Paris, Belfond, , p. . dow, painted wood frame and panes of glass On Duchamp’s surpassing of Picasso as a fig - covered with black leather, New York, urehead in the historiography of art history Museum of Modern Art. in the th century, see Leeman, Aillaud, Arroyo and Recalcati, in Ottinger, (note ), pp. - . ed., (note ), p. . Following the exhibition of replicas of “Manifeste du futurisme”, Le Figaro , Duchamp’s ready-mades at the Arturo February . Schwarz Gallery in Milan in , a retro - Gilles Aillaud, Arroyo and Recalcati, in spective of his work was held at the Tate Ottinger, ed., (note ), p. . Gallery in London in and his work was Ibid . included in the major Dada exhibition at the Marcel Duchamp, Cœurs Volants , , col - Musée National d’Art Moderne in Paris the lage reproduced on the cover of Cahiers d’art , same year. Picasso’s work was exhibited in , No. -. the same period in Paris at the Grand Palais, A handwritten document signed by the three the Petit Palais, the Bibliothèque Nationale painters (fig. ), held in the archives of Gérald and the Galerie Jeanne Bucher. Gassiot-Talabot, highlights the extent to Phrase excerpted from a discussion between which this was a conscious and premeditated Pierre Restany and Pierre Cabanne , quoted act of violence conceived as a symbolic attack. in the introduction to their book, L’Avant- Dated September , and presumably garde au XX e siècle , Paris, Balland, , p. . addressed to the exhibition organiser Gassiot- For the French context of this rewriting of Talabot, their declaration states: “The under - art history in the s, see, in particular, signed, Gilles Aillaud, Eduardo Arroyo, Leeman, (note ), pp. - . Antonio Recalcati, co-creators of the series of Jean Clair, Marcel Duchamp ou le Grand Fictif. eight paintings entitled Vivre et laisser mourir ou Essai de mythanalyse du Grand Verre , Paris, la mort tragique de Marcel Duchamp shown at Galilée, , p. . the Galerie Creuze for the exhibition La Ibid .