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PARTISAN REVIEW
(most obviously, in the case of painting, we find an affirmation of the
two dimensionality of the canvas; in the case of dance, we find post–
modern choreographers calling attention to "real time," expendi–
ture of energy, actual weight, etc.). When Yvonne Rainer insists
that "it is important to distinguish between real energy and what I
shall call apparent energy," she is parting ways with Susanne
Langer's influential primitivist idea that
the dance is an appearance, if you like, an apparition . It springs
from what the dancers do, yet it is something else . In watching a
dance you do not see what is physically before you-people run–
ning around or twisting their bodies; what you see is a display of
interacting forces .... But these powers, these forces that seem
to operate in the dance, are not the physical forces of the danc–
er's muscles which actually cause the movements taking place .
The forces we seem to perceive most directly and convincingly
are created for our perception; and they exist only for it.
Rainer wants us to be analytically aware of the exact expendi–
ture of energy and the precise physical dimensions of those running,
twisting bodies, rather than awed by the "invisible forces" that seem
to animate them. It's true, of course, that many of the early modern
dances did try to conjure up some sort of illusory presence. Andre
Levinson noted of Isadora Duncan, for example, that, "the figura–
tive strength of her gesture is such that the audience can see the sac–
rificial flowers and vessels in her hands." Postmodern dance elimi–
nates this sort of illusion by purging optical experience of any tactile
dimension.
Of course, contemporary art is often about "thinking" as well
as about seeing. Cezanne once said, "In the museum, the painter
learns to think." Malraux argued that in the world of the museum,
our approach to art is simultaneously historicized and intellectual–
ized. Duchamp's innovations, as I've already suggested, are possi–
ble only in the age of the museum . By redefining art as a way of
looking at and thinking about the world, he profoundly altered our
conception of what it means to "make" a work of art. At least in the
case of the readymades, all physical craft and manual labor is
eliminated; art becomes an exercise of the intelligence, pure and
simple.
Despite the wildly extravagant claims that have been made on
Duchamp's behalf, it can be argued that he was motivated primarily
by a deep-seated inferiority complex deriving from the fact that his
