Black coffee. Marcel Duchamp’s pataphysical sensism

• Main Author: Dirk van Weelden
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Radboud University Press in cooperation with Open Journals 2016-06-01
• Series: Relief: Revue Électronique de Littérature Francaise
• Subjects: Duchamp; pataphysics; readymade; relativity; creative act
• Online Access: https://revue-relief.org/article/view/9104

Duchamp’s readymade is usually interpreted as a bold and cerebral emancipation of modern art from the material, the craft and natural beauty, and the discovery of the continent of conceptual art. Duchamp however was very sceptical and made fun of abstract reasoning, concepts and theories. This essay states that Duchamp ostensibly found inspiration with Alfred Jarry’s work and particularly his ‘neo--science’ of pataphysics, like many dadaïsts, futurists, surrealist did around 1910. And that he did so openly. Beyond art and the possibility of conceptual art lies the pataphysical, the vast and rich realm of the senses. Duchamp’s interest was not in concepts or ideas, his drive was towards the virtual, ambiguous, irrational side of perception. All we have is the senses, the unique moments, the unique objects and bodies, our memories, and what the chaotic abundance of information they give us means, is unknown. Probably nothing. Duchamp thought that all science, art, religion, madness, literature and philosophy are creative efforts starting from tautologies; he was no conceptualist but a radical ‘sensist’.