Sunday, October 25, 2009

Duchamp & Vernon Ah Kee

Essay- Year 2, semester 2 2008
Key texts - 1968 - present
Engaging in the World Around Us (excerpts)



Mankind is passing through the most profound crisis in its history. An old world is dying; a new one is being born. Capitalist civilisation, which has dominated the economic, political and cultural life of continents, is in the process of decay.
This quote, from the “John Reed Club of New York: Draft Manifesto” was originally published in New Masses in June 1932, but is just as relevant today in light of the current global, economic and environmental downturn affecting our communities. The work Fountain by Marcel Duchamp from 1917, was produced at a time when art was stimulated by intense creativity and experimentation in the period of Modernism. This was a time when avant-garde artists rebelled against traditional forms of art and rejected the bourgeois social structure of capitalism. With reference to the quote, this essay will explore issues of democracy and authenticity in the relationship of Fountain to a contemporary work by Vernon Ah Kee, titled Born in this Skin. I will discuss art, culture and political change over this time period. Emphasis will be on freedom of expression that resulted from Duchamp's ideas and the development of public art as a democratic voice. Vernon Ah Kee's work has had an impact on me, not only because I had the opportunity to experience the work as part of the Sydney Biennale but also to consider my own artistic development as an individual and where I locate myself as an artist in the 21st century. I believe Vernon Ah Kee was referencing Duchamp's Fountain in choosing the public toilet as a work of art. According to Grant Kester:
Arts role is to shock us out of perceptual complacency, to force us to see the world anew, to make the viewer more sensitive and responsive to the social world.1
I feel both Marcel Duchamp and Vernon Ah Kee have achieved this distinction of making us aware of the world we live in, a world in the process of decay.

1 Grant H Kester. “Conversation Pieces: The Role of Dialogue in Socially-Engaged Art (2004).” Theory in contemporary art since 1985. edited by Zoya Kocur and Simon Leung. Malden, MA ; Oxford, UK : Blackwell Publishing, 2005. 79

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