Mr Mutt

[Kim Cascone <kim@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> i agree with all of this except the conclusion: duchamp did not try to
> raise a political/economic issue (he usually never did in his art):
> he wanted to sell the piece!
and 'wanting to sell the piece' (which wasn't his intention) immediately
places the issue square into the arena of politics and economics...
 
> and that's why he got mad at the organizers and started making
> all the replicas: to sell more.
because any replication of the original object changes his statement from a
general 'fuck the art establishment' to being 'Urinals on sale now by
Duchamp Inc.'...which would have flipped the signal to noise ratio of his
message...
 
> he was making a point on art itself (as kim perfectly sums up), but i
> tend to exclude that there was also the consumption issue.
why? if you go to a gallery to see art you are consuming a cultural
commodity...so consumption is a base from which we all operate from...

> still i want to point out that the definition one seeks here is economic
> or political but not artistic.
again they are not separate issues at all...aesthetics and
political/economics are just different sides of same object

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