letting go of duchamp

I have drawn since I was four years old, when I recorded the experience of seeing four Navy helicopters being forced to land in fog near my home. Through my childhood I amused myself making things, copying Disney cartoons, drawing Greek and Roman soldiers and later, designs of imaginary sports cars I dreamt I would own one day. Though I tended not to draw what I saw around me, I was creative, enjoyed art and design generally and went to art school in 1971. In those days life drawing was an essential part of visual education. Figure drawing is difficult; as hard as I tried, my early efforts resembled burnished metal forms - like Roman soldiers… unsurprisingly. Like many others in my group, my lines lacked understanding and were insistent, wilful and not very responsive - more like a sign or a signature and more half remembered than seen. The figure drawing was constructed with parts seen and laboriously recorded, as is music played by a beginner. Though I could recognise a good draw...

  There’ s an interesting contrast in the ways Matisse and Duchamp regarded chess. Duchamp was obsessed with the game and almost seemed to prefer it to art, playing it throughout his life and giving much of his time to its study and practice. Matisse was not interested in board games and never played them. Matisse “ A walk with Matisse is a real botany lesson. He knows all sorts of things about the growth of fruit, the nature of the soil, which have nothing to do with painting. To say that he is interested in such diverse subjects reminds me that he plays no games. Matisse, at 74 years of age, has never touched a a game of cards or chess or draughts .When, after too sustained an effort or during a convalescence, someone suggested that he played something for amusement, he refused, saying like Degas, ‘And what if it bores me to distract myself?’”  Marguette Bouvier in conversation with Matisse 1944     “One must study an object a long...