Why Do We Stop? (Cont.)
As we progress through life, we drop things that we used to do, even though we might not fully know why we stopped doing them, even though we might have liked doing them. Recently, I read a book about the avant-garde, How To Be Avant-Garde, particularly a passage about Marcel Duchamp. The author was curious why he stopped making art. Essentially, it was a shift to “conceptual interventions”. After the Fountain scandal (the "Richard Mutt case"), critics often noted his "inactivity" and his commitment to "doing nothing" after the war. This was a deliberate shift, engaging instead in activities like playing chess. He stated there could be "no more question of my life as an artist’s life: I gave that up ten years ago.” I sometimes wonder why I stopped making art, even though I like to make it and I have lots of ideas. I realized I don't like to make lots of objects, and I’d rather be the conceptualist or the art director, which can loop in lots of...
