Masson - Minotaure

Wise Old Dada

VII

je dis comme je vis

je vois comme la voix

je prends comme j'offre

ma vie est ainsi

je ne dois rien à personne

je dois tout à tous les hommes

from Quarante Chansons et Déchansons, Tristan Tzara, 1954

Speaking of Silence

Marcel Duchamp at 13

As Rrose Sélavy, photo by Man Ray, 1921

As Adam in Satie's ballet Relâche, 1924

Photo by Victor Obsatz, 1953

Torn-paper self-portrait, 1958

"Marcel Duchamp, having become an aristocrat because of his original Dadaist anarchism, categorically refuses to take part in the contemporary artistic brawl. He does not want to be identified with those who tirelessly continue "barking at the moon," he abandons painting, not as an act of artistic suicide, but because he continues to have swift nudes cross the king and the queen in his thoughts, while playing chess."

--Salvador Dali, Art News, April 1959

Five years after Dali's salute to the sardonic eminence grise of the avant-garde, Joseph Beuys would challenge Duchamp's reputation on behalf of a new generation of socially engaged young artists. "The Silence of Marcel Duchamp is Overrated," he declared in a performance of 1964. I believe the obvious retort has already been made long ago: "The Talking of Joseph Beuys is Overrated!" While there is much I admire in Beuy's work, a little of his prophetic posturing goes a long way. I find much more repose and refreshment in Duchamp's playful economy of sparse gestures, each one of which seems to have launched a new genre and a hundred artistic careers. Where would Beuys himself have been without the example of Duchamp's readymades, which he magnified and multiplied into mountains of earnest kitsch?

Alas for Duchamp, even in retreat he could not escape from the interpretations of his critics and rivals. The game of art once begun could not be resigned. Probably he chuckled at Beuys' rhetoric in silent amusement, if he regarded it at all. Perhaps he even agreed. His absent presence remains a pleasure and a peace in this age of noise, for his silence was not vacancy.

young Bardot

parisian paperback purchases

Even on a dark, wintry evening, with a gelid wind blowing along the Seine, one may find the odd stalwart bookseller plying his trade.

plus ça change

The Boulevard Montparnasse has altered so little since Camille Pissaro depicted its changing, changeless face in 1897. I hope to return soon to Paris...

FRÈRE BOIS par TRISTAN TZARA

frère bois
et sœur pierre
les malins
vont au bois
cueillir des pierres

sur les douves
dans les prés
on ne trouve
que regrets
parait-il

*

tu ouvres les ailes
pour partir en voyage
tu te moques de nous
cheval
à ton âge

*

tard levé
tôt couché
soleil frileux
parle-moi de Botticelli

l'Atelier de Georges Braque

"In Art there is only one thing that counts; the thing you can't explain."

Atelier II, 1949

"We will never have repose. The present is perpetual."

Atelier V, 1949-50

"It is the unforeseeable that creates the event."

Atelier VI, 1950-51

"I don’t do as I want, I do as I can."

André Breton. L'union libre (1931)

Ma femme à la chevelure de feu de bois

Aux pensées d'éclairs de chaleur

A la taille de sablier

Ma femme à la taille de loutre entre les dents du tigre

Ma femme à la bouche de cocarde et de bouquet d'étoiles de dernière grandeur

Aux dents d'empreintes de souris blanche sur la terre blanche

A la langue d'ambre et de verre frottés

Ma femme à la langue d'hostie poignardée

A la langue de poupée qui ouvre et ferme les yeux

A la langue de pierre incroyable

Ma femme aux cils de bâtons d'écriture d'enfant

Aux sourcils de bord de nid d'hirondelle

Ma femme aux tempes d'ardoise de toit de serre

Et de buée aux vitres

Ma femme aux épaules de champagne

Et de fontaine à têtes de dauphins sous la glace

Ma femme aux poignets d'allumettes

Ma femme aux doigts de hasard et d'as de coeur

Aux doigts de foin coupé

Ma femme aux aisselles de martre et de fênes

De nuit de la Saint-Jean

De troène et de nid de scalares

Aux bras d'écume de mer et d'écluse

Et de mélange du blé et du moulin

Ma femme aux jambes de fusée

Aux mouvements d'horlogerie et de désespoir

Ma femme aux mollets de moelle de sureau

Ma femme aux pieds d'initiales

Aux pieds de trousseaux de clés aux pieds de calfats qui boivent

Ma femme au cou d'orge imperlé

Ma femme à la gorge de Val d'or

De rendez-vous dans le lit même du torrent

Aux seins de nuit

Ma femme aux seins de taupinière marine

Ma femme aux seins de creuset du rubis

Aux seins de spectre de la rose sous la rosée

Ma femme au ventre de dépliement d'éventail des jours

Au ventre de griffe géante

Ma femme au dos d'oiseau qui fuit vertical

Au dos de vif-argent

Au dos de lumière

A la nuque de pierre roulée et de craie mouillée

Et de chute d'un verre dans lequel on vient de boire

Ma femme aux hanches de nacelle

Aux hanches de lustre et de pennes de flèche

Et de tiges de plumes de paon blanc

De balance insensible

Ma femme aux fesses de grès et d'amiante

Ma femme aux fesses de dos de cygne

Ma femme aux fesses de printemps

Au sexe de glaïeul

Ma femme au sexe de placer et d'ornithorynque

Ma femme au sexe d'algue et de bonbons anciens

Ma femme au sexe de miroir

Ma femme aux yeux pleins de larmes

Aux yeux de panoplie violette et d'aiguille aimantée

Ma femme aux yeux de savane

Ma femme aux yeux d'eau pour boire en prison

Ma femme aux yeux de bois toujours sous la hache

Aux yeux de niveau d'eau de niveau d'air de terre et de feu.

:: I would very much like to translate this poem but unfortunately some key words like "fesses" and indeed "femme" lack pleasing equivalents in English. Perhaps I will attempt a sort of paraphrase...

again Tzara again

the great la-
ment of my
obscurity one

cold whirlpool zigzag of blood
i have no soul cascade with no
friends no talents lord
i don't always receive
my mother's letters
which must pass through Russia
through Norway and through England
memories in red spirals
burn my brain on the rows
of the amphitheatre
and like a luminous advertisement
of my soul, misfortune gushed from
the sphere
tower of light teeming ring
of blue ants
nimbus searing drought of
afflictions

come close to me so the prayer
won't annoy you it descends in
the earth like diving suits
yet to be invented
then iron obscurity will change
to wine and salt
simplicity lightning rod of our
plants take care
lightning rods that form
a spider
thus i become the crown of an
enormous christ
formless land voltaic arc

snow eagles will come
to feed the rock
where deep clay will become
milk
and the milk will trouble the night the
chains will ring
the rain will make heavy
chains
will form wheels in space
rays
the sceptre in the middle among
branches
old newspapers tapestries
a paralytic
nimbus drought
teeming ring of blue ants
lord golden finger furnace
sphingerie
why strangle it why
after the thunderclap the military
march will burst out
my despair tinny iron tube
but why oh why?
thus thus always but the road
you must be my rain my
obscurity my metal my
circuit my pharmacy weep
no more weep no more
if you wish

TRANSLATION DTH 24MAY08

from Vingt-Cinq Poèmes de Tristan Tzara

the leprous white

giant of the landscape

salt groups itself in constellation

of birds on the tumour of wadding

in its lungs starfish and

drawing pins balance

microbes crystallize in

palm trees of muscles seesaws

hello without a cigarette tzantzantza

ganga

bouzdouc zdouc nfoùnfa mbaah

mbaah nfoùnfa

macrocystis perifera to embrace the

boats surgeon of boats

clean humid scar

idleness of brilliant lights

the boats nfoùnfa nfoùnfa

nfoùnfa

i force candles into his

ears gangànfah helicon and

boxer on the balcony the violin

of the hotel in baobabs of flames

the flames develop in

sponge formation

the flames are sponges

ngànga and strike

the ladders climb like

blood gangà

the ferns toward the woolen

steppes my chance toward the cas-

cades

the flames sponges of glass the
mattresses wounds mattresses
the mattresses fall wancanca
aha bzdouc the butterflies
the scissors the scissors the scissors
and the shadows
the scissors and the clouds the sci-
ssors the ships
the thermometer considers the ultra-
red gmbabàba
berthe my education my tail
is cold and monochromatic
nfoua loua la
the mushrooms oranges and the
family of sounds beyond the starboard
in the beginning in the beginning the triangle
and the tree of voyagers in the beginning

my brains depart for hy-
perbole
the kaolin swarms in its cranial
box
dalibouli obok and tòmbo and tòmbo
his belly is a big cashbox
here intervene the drum major
and the clapper
for there are zigzags on his
soul the reader begins to shout
he begins to shout begins to
shout then in the shout there are
flutes that multiply - some
corals
the reader wants to die perhaps
or dance and begins to shout
he's a skinny dirty idiot he doesn't un-
derstand my verse he shouts
he's one-eyed
he has zigzags on his soul
and lots of rrrrrrr
nbaze baze look at the submarine
tiara that unravels in golden
seaweeds
hozondrac trac

nfoùnda nbabàba nfoùnda tatan

babàba


TRANSLATION DTH 30APR08