Once I was visiting a friend. We were sipping wine, and being a big music lover, he played me various recordings from his collection. Among them was an old (but still very relevant) Jewish song about “King Hoshea, who built a wall around Jerusalem and made it impregnable.” This typically Hasidic, trance-inducing melody pleased me so much that I started playing it over and over again, and I just couldn’t get enough of it. Meanwhile, our conversation turned to contemporary art, and the host began showing me books about Duchamp from his home library. So after a while, I suddenly found myself dancing something like the Jewish dance “freylekhs,” but with books about Duchamp in my hands. This combination seemed to me already a finished art piece. After several tries in different costumes, I decided that the most appropriate would be to perform this dance in a bear costume – as if combining the “three sources” of my identity: bear (Russia), Jewish dance (Jewishness), books about Duchamp (“contemporary art” and the like)[1]
[1] Leiderman Yu. Hasidic Duchamp [Electronic resource] // Moscow Conceptualism – Access mode to the resource: http://www.conceptualism-moscow.org/page?id=948Comment type: Published comment
Author: Yuriy Leiderman
Bibliography:
Leiderman Yu. Hasidic Duchamp [Electronic resource] // Moscow Conceptualism – Access mode to the resource: http://www.conceptualism-moscow.org/page?id=948
