Marcel Duchamp by Octavio Paz

Author:Octavio Paz [Paz, Octavio]
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-61145-479-6
Publisher: Arcade Publishing (Perseus)
Published: 2010-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Photo of Duchamp and his wife, Teeny, at the foot of a waterfall extraordinarily like the one in the Assemblage, in 1965 near Figueras. The photograph was taken at Duchamp ‘s request, without Denise Hare ‘s knowing that it had any connection with the Assemblage, of which the world in general was unaware until Duchamp’s death. Photo by Denise Browne Hare, courtesy of Ms. Hare.

The function of the Oculist Witnesses, despite their marginal position, is central: they receive the Spray from the Illuminating Gas, now converted into Sculpture of Drops, and transform it into a mirror image that they throw into the Bride’s domain, in the zone of the Nine Shots. The Oculist Witnesses refine (sublimate) the Illuminating Gas turned Spray of explosive drops: they change the drops into a look—that is, into the most immediate manifestation of desire. The look passes through the obstructed passages (cols alités) of the Bride and reaches her. It arrives thus far not as reality, but as the image of desire. The vision of her nudity produces in the Bride the first blossoming, before orgasm. It is, as Duchamp emphasizes, an electric blossoming.9 The function of the Oculist Witnesses is the sublimation of the Illuminating Gas into a visual image that they transport in a look capable of passing through obstacles. Desire is the “electricity at large” that the Green Box mentions. In Given electricity is literally everywhere: behind the backdrop (in the motor) and outside as the brilliant light that bathes the landscape and the naked figure.

Who are the Witnesses? Duchamp the artist (not the man) and ourselves, the spectators. There is often a tendency to see the Bride as a projection of Duchamp and, consequently, of the viewer. The contrary is also true: we are her projection. She sees her naked image in our desiring gaze, which is born from her and returns to her. Once again, the theme is viewing-through…. We see the erotic object through the obstacle, be it door or glass, and this is voyeurism; the Bride sees herself naked in our gaze, and this is exhibitionism. Both are the same, as Schwarz has pointed out. But they are united not in Duchamp or in the viewer, but in the Bride. The circular operation starts from her and returns to her. The world is her representation.

The complementary opposite of voyeurism is clairvoyance. The Oculist Witnesses of the Large Glass and the beholder of Given are clairvoyants; their gaze passes through material obstacles. The relationship is circular, once again: if desire is second sight, clairvoyance is voyeurism transformed by the imagination, desire made knowledge. Eroticism is the condition of second sight. The erotic vision is creation as well as knowledge. Our gaze changes the erotic object: what we see is the image of our desire. “It is the spectators who make the picture.’ But the object also sees us; more precisely, our gaze is included in the object. My looking makes the painting only on condition that I accept becoming a part of the painting.

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