SEEING DOUBLE

Vision Doble (Double Vision) is an online journal sponsored by the University of Puerto Rico, covering art and artists on the island where we have just published our review, in English and Spanish, of an exhibition based on an homage and response to Marcel Duchamp.

Artist Baruch Vergara and son Bruno playing chess with Cheap Trick chessboard, by Omar Velázquez (Puerto Rico), 2017. Photo: Jan Galligan.


LOOKING FOR DUCHAMP IN MAYAGÜEZ, PR
Given: 1. The Readymade Found Object, Fountain; 2. The Multiple, in seventeen variations.

Returning to Santa Olaya from a visit to Mayagüez to see an art exhibition based on Marcel Duchamp, we were pleased to find in our mailbox a new book of interviews with Duchamp conducted by Calvin Tomkins. Produced by artist Paul Chan’s new venture Badlands Unlimited, The Afternoon Interviews features previously unpublished conversations conducted in 1965. In the introduction, Chan asks Tomkins, fifty years after those interviews, “What do you think is Duchamp’s legacy today?” Tompkins replies, “His need, his passion to question everything, even the very nature of art. The real point of (his) Readymades was to deny the possibility of defining art. Art can be anything.”

FULL ARTICLE IN ENGLISH



BUSCANDO A DUCHAMP EN MAYAGÜEZ, PR
Dados: 1. El readymade Fountain, un objeto encontrado; 2. El múltiple, en diecisiete variaciones

Regresando a Santa Olaya de hacer una visita a una exhibición sobre Marcel Duchamp, en Mayagüez, fue un placer encontrar en nuestro buzón un nuevo libro de entrevistas con Duchamp, dirigido por Calvin Tomkins. Producida por la nueva aventura empresarial, Badlands Unlimited, del artista Paul Chan, The Afternoon Interviews, presenta conversaciones que se dieron en 1965, no publicadas anteriormente. En la introducción, Chan le pregunta a Tomkins, cincuenta años después de aquellas entrevistas: “¿Cuál es el legado de Duchamp en la actualidad? Tomkins respondió: “Su necesidad, su pasión por cuestionarlo todo, incluso la misma naturaleza del arte. La verdadera clave de (sus) readymades fue negar la posibilidad de definir el arte. El arte puede ser cualquier cosa”.

FULL ARTICLE IN SPANISH


Jan Galligan, Baruch Vergara, Lillian Mulero, photo by Bruno Vergara