The Wedding Cake
Looking at the thing from a superficial – but not entirely erroneous – point of view, these new Pop-people have chosen Marcel Duchamp as their patron saint and placed him in an honored niche. But Marcel Duchamp escaped from this niche very quickly. In a letter dated 10th November 1962, he writes to me: “This Neo-Dada, which they call New Realism, Pop Art, Assemblage etc., is an easy way out, and lives on what Dada did. When I discovered ready-mades I thought to discourage aesthetics. In Neo-Dada they have taken my ready-mades and found aesthetic beauty in them. I threw the bottle-rack and the urinal into their faces as a challenge and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty.” [page 207, 1965 edition; Dada Art and Anti-Art by Hans Richter; Published by Thames and Hudson.] read more →