Duchamp and the Aesthetics of Chance: Art as Experiment BY Herbert Molderings TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY John Brogden (Columbia University Press, 2010) From the Publisher: “Marcel Duchamp is often viewed as an ‘artist-engineer-scientist,’ a kind of rationalist who relied heavily on the ideas of the French mathematician and philosopher Henri Poincaré. Yet a complete portrait of Duchamp and his multiple influences draws a different picture. In his 3 Standard Stoppages (1913-1914), a work that uses chance as an artistic medium, we see how far Duchamp subverted scientism in favor of a radical individualistic aesthetic and experimental vision…. The 3 Standard Stoppages is the ultimate realization of the play between chance and dimension, visibility and invisibility, high and low art, and art and anti-art. Situating Duchamp firmly within the literature and philosophy of his time, Herbert Molderings recaptures the spirit of a frequently misread artist-and his thrilling aesthetic of chance.”

When a definitive art history of science is written I would hope Herbert Molderings’ Duchamp and the Aesthetics of Chance gets a major entry. This charming, erudite and academically thorough volume takes a single work of the brilliant French artist Marcel Duchamp and stretches it across both biographical and art historical terrain all the way into the metaphysical. A towering figure of modern art (and example of what Foucault would call an episteme) Duchamp has been the irresistible subject of numerous books. This study traces the ideas and work of the seemingly effortless Duchamp through a single, lesser known experimental piece called 3 Standard Stoppages, which Moldering regards as “the guiding principle of his artistic thinking.” According to Molderings, from 1913 until the revelation of Étant donnés, this work best demonstrates Duchamp’s art as indicated in the book’s subtitle: Art as Experiment. Was it art? Was it a science experiment? Was it a joke or a playful reference to the Surrealist artists who were accused by a disbelieving public of literally not being able to draw a straight line? The creation of 3 Standard Stoppages was simple enough. Three white threads were dropped randomly onto three canvasses and then fixed in the position they fell. Was it art? Was it a science experiment? Was it a joke or a playful reference to the Surrealist artists who were accused by a disbelieving public of literally not being able to draw a straight line? In the course of the book the author explores all these possibilities. Molderings begins by suggesting the piece was initially a “by-product” of aesthetic investigations on behalf of Duchamp’s masterpiece, The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (Large Glass). He regards this work as Duchamp’s version of a large scale painting in the classical mode. The fact that it was not, in any real sense, a painting, suggests it was philosophical and theoretical issues, and not technical prowess that preoccupied the artist, whose previous work seemed to be dealing a gleeful deathblow to the classical tradition of painting. Yet, unlike some other current commentators, Molderings does not see Duchamp as an anti-art. Instead, his books suggests that Duchamp, while working against the core values of classicism, remains part of a long tradition of artists who found intrigue and inspiration in the science and inventions of their times. The times during which 3 Standard Stoppages was made were certainly electrifying. Periodicals, books, performances and lectures luxuriated in ground-breaking scientific and mathematical theories in physics, psychology, biology and many other disicplines. These, in turn, had an unforeseen impact on the nature, duty and meaning of every aspect of art. In the modern century, the Enlightenment mindset suggesting Man’s fate was in the steady hands of rational science was crumbling under new world views put forth by Darwin, Freud and Einstein. No longer driven by either religion or rationalism, but rather governed by such uncontrollable forces as evolutionary urgency, relativity and subconscious impulse, these new views seemed to shatter the notion that Man was at the helm of anything.

This disintegration provided rich compost from which Surrealism, Dadaism and a host of revolutionary genres flourished, many of which continue to define contemporary art today. It may have also provided material for Duchamp’s peculiar genius at unsettling traditional views of art. Molderings writes “For Duchamp, life devoid of a scientific, positivist “truth” was… tolerable only if it could be understood as a game.” Thus one basis for the notable Duchampian sense of aesthetic humor and irony may have been an acknowledgment of living in an era dominated by discrepancies and the toppling of tropes. Old notions of the point and power of art had fallen out of service. “Style, beauty, expression, taste — no such criteria could be applied to the 3 Standard Stoppages,” writes the author. Indeed, this is a work that consists of dropped threads. While Cubism was allied to scientism in cause and effect, Duchamp’s work was not so much influenced by theories advanced by science, philosophy and mathematics as it was an experiment which was also a work of art.

The author both mimes and mines his subject’s consuming theoretical interests by giving free play to his own consuming interest in every aspect of the making of 3 Standard Stoppages.

Duchamp was either complicit or lucky, and either a prescient genius or brilliant prankster, according to which art critic one reads. Molderings begins by examining the discrepancy between Duchamp’s initial description of 3 Standard Stoppages and small elements, or seemingly small elements, which found their way into the final piece. These include such subtle changes as the addition of a painted blue background and the idea of affixing the fallen threads. Perhaps there is something about the nature of enigmatic genius that begs for minute examination, as Molderings makes an excellent case for his close reading of the work. He carefully traces aspects of the work within Duchamp’s œuvre and life, as well as points of contact with other, often academic, disciplines. For example, an artist as well-known for his interest in language as Duchamp seems entitled to an analysis of the work’s relationship to sewing and embroidery. Molderings teaches us that le stoppage is a French term for what in English is called “invisible reweaving” but also retains the sense of stopping, as the threads are stopped from moving and indeed from their function as threads.

The author both mimes and mines his subject’s consuming theoretical interests by giving free play to his own consuming interest in every aspect of the making of 3 Standard Stoppages. He finds correspondence in this piece not only with Large Glass but also less known works such Tu m’. He makes lengthy, informed comparisons between the objects created by Duchamp and contemporaneous scientific theories including those of the mathematician Henri Poincaré. There is some evidence that post-1913 and 3 Standard Stoppages ideas of chance became a hallmark of Duchamp’s produced work. Therefore, when Poincaré says “No, scientific laws are not artificial creations; we have no reason to regard them as accidental,” we are given new insight into Duchamp’s interest, and iconographic use of various kinds of games. There is terrific pleasure to be found when Molderings reveals such fascinating cultural concurrence as Duchamp’s use of a meter of thread in relation to the meter as artifact of the French Revolution, “a Republican unit of length that would be the same for all.” What could be more Surrealist than that?

Not everything is equally compelling, of course. Some digressions may say more about the interests and readings of Molderings than those of the artist he is describing. A final chapter which calls the 3 Standard Stoppages a “symbol of Duchamp’s’ radical individualism” seems too broad to be altogether useful. But these are minor difficulties. Those who admire the work and life of Duchamp will find much to enjoy here. It is a great opportunity to follow Molderings, a strong writer and able analyst, into the brilliant labyrinth of the mind and work of Duchamp, a true original who also originated the ready-made, holding onto the thread of an idea as we navigate the maze of Surrealism’s history and discover new ways to view one of the world’s most enthralling artists.