1913issue6online

14 “L’ennemi numéro un est la main de l’artiste.” (“Enemy Number One is the artist’s hand.” ) He fought it with delay in glass and a poil dans la main (French laziness), giving up the palette for the comb (peigner la girafe—French laziness) In 1919, subject adds a mustache and goatee to the Monna Lisa: “the curious thing about that moustache and goatee is that when you look at it, the Mona Lisa becomes a man. It is not a woman disguised as a man, it is a real man.” Was he aware that Mona Lisa, as he misspelled it, means threadbare pussy? Peindre avec un pinceau à poil. Is that the crux: painting in the nude / with a brush? The history of art bristles with nudes painted with animal hair: Kolinsky sable, squirrel, pony, goat, mongoose or badger. The finest brushes are made from the male hair only, but most brushes have a mix of about 60/40 male-to-female hair. Face recognition software says there is a 60/40 probability that the painting’s model was female, rather than Leonardo in drag. In 1921, Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven Shaves Her Pubic Hair. Some say it was Man Ray’s film, others that it was Duchamp’s, and yet others claim it was a three-way collaboration with the Baroness. Man Ray recalls helping Duchamp with his research, shooting a sequence of himself as a barber shaving the pubic hairs of a nude model, a sequence which was also ruined in the process of developing and never saw the light. The baroness recalls she was “posing as art—aggressive—virile extraordinary—invigorating—ante-stereotyped”. In 1924 Duchamp issues The Monte Carlo Bond or Obligation pour la Roulette de Monte Carlo showing Duchamp with his hair and face covered in shaving-cream. In 1924 Duchamp impersonates a Cranachian Adam with an artificial beard and shaved pubis. Duchamp: “A painter paints and applies his taste to what he paints.” It’s not just that taste is applied with a brush but that in French, peindre (to paint) and peigner (to comb) share the subjunctive form: que je peigne. Bête comme un peintre. Sale comme un peigne. We zoom in on the comb, hair leaning left or right on either

1913issue6online

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