Why Not Sneeze, Rrose Sélavy?
Rrose Sélavy is one of pseudonyms of the artist Marcel Duchamp. In this portrait, Man Ray allows us to see Duchamp’s all too masculine features, the long chin, the big nose and the hawkish profile. The effect here is seedy as if Rrose were a secret transvestite photographed in a back street studio, dreaming of what might be. It feels like a confession but with Marcel Duchamp, nothing is that simple.
Eros, c’est la vie
Edna St. Vincent Millay
And you as well must die, belovèd dust
And you as well must die, belovèd dust,
And all your beauty stand you in no stead;
This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head,
This body of flame and steel, before the gust
Of Death, or under his autumnal frost,
Shall be as any leaf, be no less dead
Than the first leaf that fell,this wonder fled,
Altered, estranged, disintegrated, lost.
Nor shall my love avail you in your hour.
In spite of all my love, you will arise
Upon that day and wander down the air
Obscurely as the unattended flower,
It mattering not how beautiful you were,
Or how belovèd above all else that dies.
