Kendall Art Cultural Center

“Sources”

 

by Roxana M. Bermejo

 

I have always defended that along with any good work of art there is a theoretical thinking entrenched. Sometimes, the piece works as a constant for critical thinking, other times, it works as its trigger. This last case, of course, is much more intense, interesting, explanatory and revealing. Definitive.

 

I think of Duchamp setting his fountain in the middle of a gallery, signing his fountain, saying this is not a urinal, and the audience applauding. After him, I think about Arthur Danto and a little behind in George Dickie, I think about how post modernity opens up and I think about Duchamp himself telling me: I'm Interested in ideas, not just in visual products.

 

And I think about the Idea, and since the Idea is intangible, I think of its embodiment facing the new times. And I go back to Duchamp and I think what Duchamp would do in the new times. And then, I think that Duchamp has not died, that it's always the others who die. 

 

Duchamp illuminated the paths for contemporary art. The above is at this point an axiom a thousand times repeated. I will not even take a line to explain it: everything that came after Duchamp drinks from him; necessarily drinks from him.

 

Duchamp opened the intertextuality, the conceptualism, the loss of the aura of the work, and the Institutionalization of art. After him, nothing was left in the same place. Nothing was sustainable without his signature. There is no doubt that the urinal is the most authentic, artistic and valuable piece of the 20th century.

 

Now, we should ask ourselves where the shots are pointing, where the art of the 21st century is being urinated. And although many sins of skepticism, and although I myself sin... I think that sometimes a piece comes to light that makes us believe in reincarnation.

 

If Duchamp lived- I know I sound a bit fanatical, but in essence I am- if Duchamp lived, this would be his work and the signature of Henry Ballate would be the equivalent of R. Mutt in that urinal of 1917.

 

I'm not going to make it obvious by explaining the reasons that drive me to think the above, nor will I comment on the choice of an element of our daily life becoming an icon of the plastic arts, nor will I talk about the commercialization of art, or the globalization of information. Well, maybe that's what I'll tell you a little about.

 

Surpassed the limits that disturbed Duchamp facing the power of the Art Institution, new challenges arise for the contemporary world, among which stands out the generalized possibility of access to the work, the uncontrolled inflow of information, the possession and non-possession of the totality of knowledge, and the incapacity that generates the possibility or encompassment of everything.

 

Warhol had already warned before, and Warhol had driven consumerism into the most dangerous area of all: art.

 

There, on this point, this painting signed by a certain Mr. Ballate is placed. Will he know that his work is just a pretext to revere, perhaps update the memory of that great duo of Dada and Pop? Let us suppose he knows. Let us suppose that this is due to the use of traditional methods and materials to make your piece, a QR, a simple QR that like any good QR is, although similar to those of its kind, unique and unrepeatable.

 

The hand of the creator (perhaps the least important element in front of this framework) leads, with chess skill, the arrangement of the small black-white paintings on the canvas in such a way that, at the end of the path— and giving participation to a spectator mediated for its contemporary extension of openness to the world (Digital Devices)— comes face to face with a work of universal art. This is the idea, in a few words: give away a work hidden behind a QR.

 

Is this art? Perhaps, if we stick to the very principles of Institutionalization, where every element presented in a circle of art and appreciated by an audience of art, immediately becomes a good or bad piece, but an artistic piece at last. However, maybe it is not art. Perhaps it is not pure art, and it grows as a mixture of a globalized curatorial exercise. Will there be a specific intention behind the selection of the works that appear through the window of the QR?

 

These iconic works, will they be punctual and will they bring a message to those who look for them? Let's say yes. And suppose that for that simple reason, the first of them, the firstborn of the series, presents us “The Urinal” through an interactive work, composed of small black canvases, conceived in a traditional way. A hundred years after the birth of “The Fountaine,” “The Source” by Henry Ballate is a piece that can be transformed through the rearrangement of its components, leading the viewer to experience other relevant works of Art History.

 

Afterwards, the order of apprehension of the sample matters little. It is in the interest of this project to reach its public in the same chaotic and fractional way in which the information flies. It is his interest to wander between the techné of the piece itself and the classic techné of what is online, dissociate us from the authenticity of the work, compared to the legitimacy of the work, compared to the effectiveness and essence of the work.

 

To all these, what is the work?

Who is the artist?

Oh Duchamp!

What you have done in contemporary art!