This May Be the Most Vulgar Sculpture Ever Made

The poor little rich girl gets no peace. (HT: Michael J. Lewis).

The ghost of Marcel Duchamp has triumphed completely, like it or not. More here. Roger Kimball writes:

Duchamp mounted a campaign against art and aesthetic delectation. In one sense, he succeeded brilliantly. Only the campaign backfired. Once the aloof and brittle irony of Duchamp institutionalized itself and became the coin of the realm, it descended from irony to a new form of sentimentality. I do not have much time for Marcel Duchamp; in my view his influence on art and culture has been almost entirely baneful; but it is amusing to ponder how much he would have loathed the contemporary art world where all his ideas had been ground-down into inescapable clichés, trite formulas served up by society grandees at their expensive art fêtes in the mistaken belief that they are embarked on some existentially or aesthetically daring enterprise. Perhaps Duchamp, aesthete that he was, would have savored the comedy. I suspect his amour-propre would have caused him to feel nausea, not amusement.

Of course, he, like me, is a reactionary fuddy-duddy, which is just another type-cast part in the play.

Tragedy, comedy, or farce? You decide.