Duchamp Code
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Marcel Duchamp
Fountain (源)
 
Duchamp & Laotzu

無用
Readymade
 
有生於無
 
同謂之玄
 
交互循環
 
為道日損
 

 
 
無源      『老子』 第4章    ⇒  Japanese
道。冲而用之或不盈。淵兮似萬物之宗。
挫其鋭。解其粉。和其光。同其塵。
湛兮似或存。吾不知誰之子。象帝之先。
 
The Fountainless      Laotzu, Chapter 4 
The Tao is (like) the emptiness of a vessel;
and in our employment of it we must be on our guard against all fulness.
How deep and unfathomable it is,
as if it were the Honoured Ancester of all things !
We should blunt our sharp points, and unravel the complications of things ;
we should attemper our brightness,
and bring ourselves into agreement with the obscurity of others.
How pure and still the Tao is, as if it would ever so continue !
I do not know whose son it is. It might appear to have been before God.
 
無源,   'The Fountainless.' There is nothing before the Tao; ...
 James Legge, THE TEXTS OF TAOISM, VLUME 1, 1891, p.50
 
 

《 Fountain 》, 1917
Photo by Alfred Stieglitz
 
所謂道悪乎在、荘子曰、无所不在、
・・・、曰在尿溺、・・・
『荘子』 知北遊篇 第二十二
 
'Where is what you call the Dao to be found ?'
Chuang-tzu replied, 'Everywhere.'
...'It is in that excrement.'...
Chuang-tzu,
Knowledge, Rambling in the North, BOOK XXII
cf. James Legge, THE TEXTS OF TAOISM,
VLUME 2, p.66, 1891