Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Charles Simic looks at Dada ...

... Making It New. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

"When one recalls the huge influence Dada has had and continues to have among avant-garde artists and poets, one is likely to leave the museum convinced that there hasn't been a single new idea in the last eighty years."

"When Picabia drew a sparkplug and called it Portrait of a Young American Girl in a State of Nudity, he knew there is no better way to draw attention to the aesthetic side of a mass-produced object than to connect it to sex. Advertisers of everything from cars to toothpaste have always understood that much."

Put these two thoughts together and one realizes how fundamentally retro and commercial the contemporary avant-garde is.

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