Marcel Duchamp and the Art of Life by Jacquelynn Baas (review)

Jacquelynn Baas's book has a deceptively simple title and cover showing an image of the doors of Duchamp's last work Given. This deception might be equaled by Duchamp's wish to go "underground," something that he did literally when he was buried in his family grave in my hometown, Rouen. As Baas points out in her conclusion, Duchamp's ultimate goal was for both art and himself to disappear, the famous epitaph on his grave, "Besides, it's always the others that die" (D'allieurs, c'est toujours les autres qui meurent), pointing to the ongoing relationship to others (p. 308).

Baas is specifically known for her books on the influence of Eastern philosophy on Western art. As early as in Buddha Mind in Contemporary Art (edited with Mary Jane Jacob, 2004) she incorporated a text by Tosi Lee, a distillation of his doctoral thesis from 1993, on possible connections between Buddhism and Duchamp's work. In the current volume, she builds further on the insights gained from editing Lee's text (p. xi) [1]. Its importance lies in the way Baas speculatively, but nevertheless convincingly, further develops the possible links between Duchamp's work and life and Eastern thought, more specifically tantric practices. This might come as a shock to some, as did the unexpected "theatricality" of Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas when it was first revealed to the public in the Philadelphia Museum of Art after Duchamp's death. But as Baas remarks, "It is not as though there were no clues." And although she never reveals any hard-edged evidence, she builds her case on clues of which there are decidedly more than you would think—for instance, the role of the Museum Guimet in Paris with, amongst others, its figurine of Dakini in the attitude of dance or the presence of someone like Buddhist explorer and writer Alexandra David-Neel in Paris circles. Another is Duchamp's relationship and collaboration with Georges Bataille, to whom Baas dedicates quite a substantial part of her book. Bataille was well versed in tantric practices and collaborated with Duchamp, Robert Lebel and Robert and Isabelle Waldberg on the so-called Le Da Costa Encyclopédique (1947) as well as Le Mémento Universel Da Costa (1948–1949)—more or less tongue-in-cheek continuations of Bataille's Acéphale. Isabelle Waldberg, who together with her husband was very much involved in Acéphale, is here also revealed not only as a very intriguing and overlooked artist but also as an important sparring partner for Duchamp for, amongst others things, the scenography of his Rain Room for the Exposition International du Surréalisme (Galerie Maeght, Paris, 1947), in which he included both work by Waldberg and another important female sparring partner, Maria Martins.

There isn't enough room here to develop all of Baas's fascinating clues, "numerous correlations between his art, his statements, and his writings with elements of Asian practices and philosophy" (p. 307). One of the images that emerges is that of Duchamp as part of a wider circle of both male and female artist friends such as Waldberg, Martins, Breton, Ray or Picabia, with whom, in a close spiritual collaboration, an interest in tantric or related practices was widely shared. The idea of being part of a family or clan of like-minded spirits, as in the case of the Da Costa "clan" or even the choice to be buried in his family's grave for that matter, was clearly important to Duchamp. This leads Baas eventually to develop an intriguing new reading of works like The Large Glass or Given, arguing that they used a certain eroticism in a tantric way, that is as a passage to insight.

Baas fittingly quotes an excerpted note by Duchamp's godson Gordon Matta-Clark, in which he referred to Duchamp's motto There is no solution because there is no problem, that was clearly influenced...