[Rick Mullin]

I'm sorry, but the analogy between Mallarmé's paper and Picabia's frame is solid. One has to want to take it apart to pull it apart, at which point, of course, one does.

That's no fun.
RM

[Maryann Corbett]

When I google "Picabia empty frame" I get 33,000 hits. Much of the text that comes up is clearly describing the piece with the frame and the string.

What that suggests to me is that, even though people are quite aware that Picabia's frame is not literally empty, they quite naturally refer to it as "empty." They refer to it that way because it doesn't contain what a frame usually contains: canvas and an image. "Empty frame" appears to be a standard way of talking about Picabia's piece. Its use doesn't suggest at all that the poet didn't do his homework. It suggests that he read what's been written about the work as well as looking at it.

[R. Nemo Hill]

Yes, Maryann, and that he understands it in its cultural context.

Nemo

[wendy v]

Neither was Mallarme's paper blank, Petra. The analogy is complex, and obviously difficult to put into mathematical terms, but not necessarily faulty.

Art pour l' art has been hotly debated since ....well, since art. And religion.

Stimulating discussions on both of these poems.

As an aside:

<This is where "irony" is not a disposable prophylactic.>

If everybody would kindly forget they've ever seen that -- for I would like to steal it for a future time.

And yes, given the context, I do realize that sounds truly, truly gross.

yrs truly,
wendistinguished

[Jim Hayes]

One also has to take Picabia's intention into the equation-
far more importatant to the interpretation of the work than faux intellectuallism ( read spoofing)

Also, Picabia's 'frame' is suspended in the Pompidou gallery, in company btw with
Man Ray's 'Urinal' (that's an aside, so foodle doodle yerself Stepho) anyway, the point being that you can go right up to it and examine it front and back. There are writings on the papers attached to the strings. These are contemporay statements from the prime Dadaist Tzara. The strings themselves are hang cords which also has significance in context. If 30, 000 people believe it to be an 'empty frame' it only means 30,000 people dont understand it or what it represents and haven't bothered to find out.

Picabia may not be a 'giant' but he was important to the Dada movement firstly, and thereafter as a surrealist and it is misinformation bordering on the ignorant to interpret his frame as actually being empty however it may have entered the popular misconception as being so.

[Don Jones]

**********************************

[Rick Mullin]

The artist's intention is like all intention, good or bad (our poem here speaks, in part, to this) . Not that faux intellectuallism is worth boo boo.

But Picabia, Picabia, Picabia. Why can't I get people interested in Emil Nolde?

Rick

[Jim Hayes]

"The artists intentions are like all intentions- good or bad"-
Are still smoking Rick?

[Rick Mullin]

Seriously,

Artists tended to have a lot more to "say" about their intent in the 20th century than they did previously. But art imparts. It communicates. What matters is what is conveyed to the person experiencing it. It is about shared experience--nature-artist-viewer/reader/eater. What greater intent could there be? If whatever other intent comes across, that's great! Otherwise, intent is a footnote and an MFA course. And a manifesto. And perhaps fascinating. And a footnote.

If you haven't already, read Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word. It's short and to the point. He provides his own illustrations, too.

Rick

[Jim Hayes]

But seriously Rick artists have always had something to say.

What Picabia did was frame the strings, and Tzara's words, on minisculke pieces of paper, were the 'paintings' hung from from the strings the same way a picture frame would enclose a pictorial representation. He inverted the normal.

I find nothing wrong with equating a blank page to a an empty frame or to a blank canvas, but not to Picabia.

Which is what the poet has done here and is incorrect.