In Paris,
at the at the "Salon de l'Aviation" of 1914,
Marcel Duchamps declares : "This is the death of art."
Examining a propeller,
he looks his friends Leger and Brancusi in the eyes
and asks: "Can you do better than this?"
(...what would he have said to a jet reactor?)
Is this what pushed him to pose
as a transvestite for Man Ray?
He might just as well look to the stars,
in the velvet purple sky
where the Milky Way grins
its Mona Lisa smile down upon us,
and declare: "This is the death of art."
Berlin 1933:
Hitler's knickers are in a knot.
His consternation with
Otto Dix,
Jean Arp,
Paul Klee
is palpable.
"This is the death of art!" he declares.
But he is not a man to talk about the weather
and do nothing about it.
He leads a charge
upon twelve legions of Valkyries
to save the world.
Art is the first cup of
coffee
in a freshly painted kitchen
after every thing has been
cleaned up and put away.
Both of them should have
known that.
ean McKean
Gold trophy winner
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