What's up for two more days v. F11 or +/=

Kasmin's wonderful evocation (515 27) of Brancusi's impasse Ronsin "a dead end street of ramshackle studios and workshops that had been built originally for the foreign artisans who came to work on the 1889 International Exposition.. When (collector John) Quinn made his second and last trip to Paris in the fall of 1923 - he died the following year - his happiest evenings were spent at impasse Ronsin. Henri-Pierre Roché describes an evening there in 1922 when Erik Satie was present: 'Dinner at Brancusi's - splendid. His famous cold beans puree, with garlic vinaigrette, his grilled steak... he multiplies himself, cooks, serves... there were two violins, Satie and Brancusi playing duos, teasing each other, we laugh so hard our jaws ache." (Tomkins' Duchamp) When Quinn died, Brancusi asked Duchamp and Roché (author of two of my favorite Truffaut films) to buy his works for what was then a low sum with a collector friend of Brancusi's and split them three ways. Duchamp told Pierre Cabanne he then proceeded to support himself "for fifteen or twenty years" by selling his cut of the sculptures to Roché one by one as the prices kept going up.

There's a wonderful previously unseen Ernst at the show, but I believe it was painted in Arizona and Brancusi hated Ernst for some inexplicable reason. This was, though, the general period when Ernst was preparing his move back to Paris and Man Ray was a common friend.

The show includes Duchamp's Rotoreliefs which Breton originally convinced a collector to finance and that he later made in larger number.. spiral, moving discs that recall British Vorticism. His use of movement put him at odds with Cubists "they had an absolutely clear, dogmatic line.." which led to the request to withdraw from a group show Nude Descending a Staircase, which resembled Futurism rather than Cubist scenes of someone playing a guitar or reading a newspaper with a glass of Pernod. "Always there has been a necessity for circles in my life, for.. rotation. It is a kind of narcissism.." The chocolate grinder, like the spirals anti-painterly, creates the essence of the bachelor of the Large Glass to be entered into existence by the malic molds.

Also ending this week is the aforementioned Guston - Nixon show and Hurvin Anderson at Werner 4 e 77.