Abstract
The second element in the “The Creative Act” is “the onlooker,” a term Duchamp uses to describe the effects produced by the museum mechanism: the function of the exhibition space in aestheticizing the object. The operation of display, Duchamp argues, produces what he terms a phenomenon of “transubstantiation”: a piece of inert matter is magically transformed into a work of art on the basis of a fundamental illusion. It is argued that, with Fountain, Duchamp seeks to openly stage this phenomenon by subtly manipulating the actions of the photographer responsible for the image of the work, Alfred Stieglitz. It is in the series of choices and decisions taken by Stieglitz that we come to recognize the very mechanism being described in Duchamp’s seminar.
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Notes
- 1.
At issue, here is the second fundamental element in Žižek’s notion of ideology : the logic of fantasy which guides the subject’s actions when, through a “fetishistic disavowal ,” a physical object is transformed into a “fantastic form” (Žižek, 2008, p. 19).
- 2.
As Žižek writes, the object’s material properties are seen to contain an “indestructible and immutable” essence (Žižek, 2008, p. 19).
- 3.
At this level, we are concerned with the concept of the Real as it pertains to the structure of fantasy : a gap or distortion in the fetishized object which exposes the logic of desire regulating the subject’s actions.
- 4.
This, according to Lacan , is how fantasy functions by creating a shift from the ‘object-cause’ to the ‘object-goal’ of desire . In fantasy , the real cause of our desire for an imaginary, elusive object (an object that is, in reality, a non-existent lure) is the perceived limit that appears to block our access to this object. The role of fantasy , then, is to mark this limit by emphasizing an object’s physical, opaque qualities; only by keeping the subject at a proper distance can the limit remain functional without being noticed; only by displacing or concealing the object’s opaque status can the illusion of an object (“goal”) concealed beyond this limit be created. As Žižek writes, “the act of concealing deceives us precisely by pretending to conceal something” (2008, p. 223). It is worth noting that, in parallel with Fountain’s final location, Lacan kept Courbet’s L’Origine du monde concealed behind a wooden partition. For an elaboration of this point and how it relates to the avant-garde see Kilroy (2015); for a discussion of how this relates to Žižek’s approach to ideology see Kilroy (2016).
- 5.
As Lacan argues in Seminar XI, fantasy operates on the basis of a “point-to-point correspondence between two unities in space […] what is, strictly speaking, composition” (1981, p. 86).
References
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Duchamp, Marcel. A L’Infinitif [The White Box]. New York: Cordier & Ekstrom, Inc, 1967. In Marcel Duchamp. 1973. The Writings of Marcel Duchamp. Edited by Michael Sanouillet and Elmer Peterson. New York: Da Capo Press.
Duchamp, Marcel. 1979. Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp. Translated by Ron Padgett. London: Da Capo Press.
Kilroy, Robert. 2015. “Manet’s Selfie and the Baudelairean Parallax.” The DS Project: Image, Text, Space/Place, 1830–2015. Sinéad Furlong-Clancy (ed.). http://thedsproject.com
Kilroy, Robert. 2016. “The Sublime Object of Iconology: Duchampian Appellation as Žižekian Interpellation.” Seachange: Art, Communication, Technology, Issue 6.
Lacan, Jacques. 1981. The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book XI: The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Edited by Jacques-Alain Miller. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York & London: Norton & Company.
Tomkins, Calvin. 2013. Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews. New York: Badlands Unlimited.
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Kilroy, R. (2018). The Onlooker. In: Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69158-9_7
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