The Duchampian industrial design school application that wasn’t fit to submit but is exceedingly fit to publish.

The Girl, on sabbatical since March of this year, appears to be done and done with inflicting pain to the infected mouths of strangers, but being the ambitious, curious type and not content to spend the rest of her days between the salon getting her nails done did and the country club(s) working on her tennis/golf swings, she’s applying to the local industrial design programme from the fall semester.

Whether her very last-minute portfolio will stand-up to critical scrutiny when compared to those of applicants half her age (and with one-tenth her life experience) remains to be seen,i but I couldn’t help but offer my entirely unsolicited but extremely good-natured “assistance” when it came time to submit her dozen very diverse projects. My contribution? Why, calling urinals “fountains” of course!

So, for posterity, here are our combined efforts:

For The Love of Wax - Tribute to Damien Hirst

For The Love of Wax – Tribute to Damien Hirst

The Complicity of the Ocean

The Complicity of the Ocean

Still Life of an Epileptic Seizure - Tribute to XCOPY

Still Life of an Epileptic Seizure – Tribute to XCOPY

Porpoise with a Purpose

Porpoise with a Purpose

Mother and Child Reunited - Tribute to Damien Hirst

Mother and Child (Reunited) – Another Tribute to Damien Hirst Because He’s Worth It

Decontextualized Fertility

Decontextualized Fertility

With Grampy

With Grampy

Demugged Parliament - Tribute to Banksy

Demugged Parliament – Tribute to Banksy

The Surreality of Summer

The Surreality of Summer

Foreshadowed Pitter Patter

Foreshadowed Pitter Patter

Streetwear Isn't Dead - Tribute to Virgil Abloh

Streetwear Isn’t Dead – Tribute to Virgil Abloh

Tragically, and apparently because of something called “authenticity,”ii The Girl chose not to ultimately include my undeniably brilliant titles in her final submission, but I won’t soon forget the tired and giddy late-night session we spent together on this hurried project. I came up with most of these names within a few seconds. I tell you, I could teach a course on this shit!

Maybe I just will?
___ ___ ___

  1. But I, for one, certainly won’t be surprised if her application does pass muster. Girl’s got talent! She just needs a bit of marketing sizzle to take her works from good to great. But isn’t that why she married me?
  2. And in this case, also a slightly excessive degree of seriousness, or at least non-Arensbergian playfulness about serious endeavours. I mean, what could possibly be so serious about this little flicker of fun we call life?

One thought on “The Duchampian industrial design school application that wasn’t fit to submit but is exceedingly fit to publish.

  1. […] of course these sub-angles can all be blended together as in the case of the Arensbergs, who melded Duchamp and Brancusi with New York high society while also working closely with the Philadelphia Museum of […]

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