dagblog - Comments for "A La Commode"

We received this comment via

Donal — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 00:01:00 +0000

We received this comment via email:

My name is Rob Fiks, and this letter is in response to the printed articles on "Shorty" Duane G. Davis. I'm a former Towson University Electronic Media and Film graduate currently working in the film/television industry in the DC/Baltimore metropolitan areas.

I met Shorty four years ago while I was scouting locations for a short I was filming. I found his country ridge store on Falls Road. I began my spiel, but before I finished Shorty said that I could film at his store for free. An instant connection was made. He saw potential in me and chose to support my art, for which I am still grateful and flattered.

A few weeks later Shorty called to tell me that his son was shot and killed in Illinois under unusual circumstances. I started filming a documentary about Shorty for my final semester in the spring of 2007. What started out as a short project for my documentary class, has turned into an ambitious film about Shorty’s life. The documentary is still a work in progress. After these many years, I am confident when I say that I know Shorty.

In regards to the printed articles about the Towson toilet bomb scare although the circumstances were unusual, I can unequivocally state that Shorty is not a terrorist – by any definition or stretch of the imagination. Shorty’s efforts in the community often get overlooked. He is community-oriented, with a good heart and means well.

Whatever names Shorty may be called, I will be the first to defend him in saying that he is a very outspoken individual whose words get misconstrued. There is more to Shorty than meets the eye, and it’s important to keep an open mind. This gets lost in his Facebook statuses. Shorty is not a Jared Loughner. One of my greatest pleasures in life is to drive up Falls Road on a warm spring day to buy some barbeque, and visit and talk with Shorty.

Thank you for considering this brief letter in support of Shorty, and hope that you might consider the contents in future articles regarding Shorty.

Yes, that's him. His WWII

MrSmith1 — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 07:29:46 +0000

In reply to Vaccaro is well known,

Yes, that's him. His WWII photos are wonderful. At the time, he was often getting invited to Europe for the 50th anniversary celebrations. There were even calendars made of his WWII photos. Tony had a huge blow-up of his Georgia O'Keefe photo hanging in his apt.

And I totally agree that being able to get to know and interact with people like Tony is one of the joys of living in NYC. Everyone has an interesting backstory if you just take the time to talk to them.

Tony's rotoreliefs were not the replicas made up in 1953, as Tony said he photographed DuChamp in 1951, so I assumed that meant they were from the set made in 1935.

Vaccaro is well known,

artappraiser — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 06:38:00 +0000

In reply to Thanks for the link! Great

Vaccaro is well known, especially for his WWII photos. But in his post WWII career, I know he did some photo shoots for Look or one of the other major magazines, of other major artists, including Picasso, Georgia O'Keefe and Jackson Pollack and Lee Krasner. I am sure you can find a lot on him if you do a search on google images, including sites that talk about his work.

Easily meeting people like him (and same for him meeting Duchamp) is one of the best things about living in NYC, mho.

If his Duchamp rotoreliefs were the 1965 Milan reproduction edition, mentioned at the end here, as multiples they were a valuable gift years ago but not crazy valuable, the type of thing an artist would give as a gfit. Here's one 2009 sales record for that edition, comparatively low for Duchamp values:

Auction House: Stockholm Auktionsverk
Date 03/11/2009, Lot 78
Artist: Marcel Duchamp
Title: Rotoreliefs
15.75" x 15.75"
Object with electric assemblage and a set of twelve discs,
Inscribed and Signed, Date: 1965
Low Est.:     $9,048    (S.80,000)
High Est.:     $11,310    (S.100,000)
Hammer Price:     $42,980    (S.380,000)

Thanks for the link! Great

MrSmith1 — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 05:37:51 +0000

In reply to Picabia, Ohio, eh? You might

Thanks for the link! Great stuff. When I lived in Long Island City, I had a neighbor who had been a photographer for Look magazine. His name was Tony Vaccaro. He had met DuChamp and when I moved away he gave me a print of the wonderful photograph he had taken of him for the magazine. He also told me that DuChamp had given him some 'disks'. When he showed them to me, (they were still in their original envelope), I had to inform him that these 'disks' were actually a rare complete set of rotoreliefs (in mint condition) from the original 30's printing and were probably worth quite a lot. He had no idea of their value and had simply come up to show them to me and play them on my record player so we could see the optical illusions.

Picabia, Ohio, eh? You might

artappraiser — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 05:08:00 +0000

In reply to As odd as it sounds, Duchamp

Picabia, Ohio, eh?

You might find something of interest in this relatively recent scholarship:

http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue12/unholytrinity.htm

Lots of wackydada factoids there. (Probably many more of those in Marcade's 2007 bio., unfortunately it's in French and my French reading skills, tho ok, are not of the level to navigate that specific topic...)

As odd as it sounds, Duchamp

MrSmith1 — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 04:00:00 +0000

In reply to A La Commode

As odd as it sounds, Duchamp probably was the most influential artist of the 20th century. Twenty years ago last Summer, I wrote and performed a one-person play about art. It was meant to be a spoof of performance art and offered the premise that Marcel DuChamp's notion that Art was Art because they artist says so, or in other words, that context was more important than content, had been so embraced that it now applied not just to Art, but to every aspect of society. The world now runs on the notion that content is irrelevent and that context, or how you hold something, is everything. (According to the play, the others responsible for ushering in this idea were David Sarnoff, D.W. Griffith and the unsinkable Molly Brown.) DuChamp's 'readymades' definitely changed how we look at art and, I dare say, how we look at everyday objects. In 1915, no-one would have considered a snow shovel to be a piece of art, until DuChamp put it on a wall and labeled it, "In advance of a broken arm." Now, it's in MOMA: http://www.moma.org/modernteachers/ref_pages/set_scene_pics/mai8_img2.html

In my play, the theatre's stage had been covered with 200 pounds of sweeping compound, and while I rambled on, I swept. That was the most ludicrous performance art I could come up with, as everything else I thought of had already actually been done. (The audience was given coffee scoops upon entering and at the end of the show, after making the case for the importance of content, they were given an opportunity to scoop up some of the sweeping compound and place it back into a barrel marked "Content". It's a play I only performed once, but it remains one that's dear to my heart. At the risk of totally losing my anonymity here, if anyone is interested in reading it, I've posted it on my website. Of course, keep in mind, it was written before the internet craze and Facebook and would need a lot of updating and re-writing if it was ever to be done again. But in the context of 1990-91 ...

http://www.spondyville.com/Page106BYCCMA.html

A friend told me about a

CVille Dem — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 19:09:12 +0000

In reply to A La Commode

A friend told me about a prank he pulled during his college days. He and his friends were angry about something the administration had done, and so in the dark of night, they went to the lawn in front of the administrative building and carefully distributed some fertilizer in a particular pattern.

In a few weeks, no one could understand why the grass grew out faster and darker green, spelling out FU*K ( except my friend and his cronies). It was the gift that kept on giving, because even mowing didn't hide it! Now, that's ART!

(open moan) going back to

jollyroger — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 04:53:28 +0000

In reply to Phhht. As if.

(open moan) going back to work now (close moan)

Phhht. As if.

LisB — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 04:51:25 +0000

In reply to Checking for underwear...?

Phhht. As if.

Checking for underwear...?

jollyroger — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 04:48:02 +0000

In reply to http://www.youtube.com/watch?

Checking for underwear...?