Archive of Author | Jacquelynn Baas & Paul Sharpe

About Jacquelynn Baas & Paul Sharpe

JACQUELYNN BAAS, PhD Michigan, is Director Emeritus, University of California Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. A cultural historian, she has published most recently on the influence of Asian philosophies and practices on modern and contemporary art, and about the art of Marcel Duchamp. Baas is the author of two previous essays for Interalia - https://www.interaliamag.org/articles/jacquelynn-baas-the-bride-stripped-bare-esoteric-origins-for-duchamps-large-glass/ and https://www.interaliamag.org/articles/marcel-duchamp-and-the-artist-of-tomorrow/ . PAUL SHARPE, BSc (Hons) MSc, has worked for over twenty years as a digital artist, creating visual effects imagery for movies at Lucasfilm’s, Industrial Light & Magic. Prior to that he studied Physics and Astrophysics at University College London, University of California Berkeley, and San Francisco State University.

Jacquelynn Baas, PhD Michigan, is Director Emeritus, University of California Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. A cultural historian, she has published most recently on the influence of Asian philosophies and practices on modern and contemporary art, and about the art of Marcel Duchamp. Baas is the author of two previous essays for Interalia – https://www.interaliamag.org/articles/jacquelynn-baas-the-bride-stripped-bare-esoteric-origins-for-duchamps-large-glass/ and https://www.interaliamag.org/articles/marcel-duchamp-and-the-artist-of-tomorrow/ .

Paul Sharpe, BSc (Hons) MSc, has worked for over twenty years as a digital artist, creating visual effects imagery for movies at Lucasfilm’s, Industrial Light & Magic. Prior to that he studied Physics and Astrophysics at University College London, University of California Berkeley, and San Francisco State University.

Articles with Jacquelynn Baas & Paul Sharpe

Duchamp and Infinity

The art of Marcel Duchamp is notable for its thematic repetition, notably that of Eros. The infinity symbol, ∞, is a more specific throughline, appearing in works by or associated with Duchamp from 1921 onwards. The concept of infinity has three primary applications: the mathematical, the physical, and the metaphysical. With respect to Duchamp, the authors analyse mathematical applications via the Möbius strip and Klein bottle. They investigate physical manifestations of infinity via Duchamp’s La Bagarre d’Austerlitz (1921) and Anémic Cinéma (1926). The infinity symbols in a diagram representing Adam and Eve developed with Georges Bataille, published in Duchamp’s satirical journal ‘Mémento Universel Da Costa’ (1949), serve to clarify metaphysical aspects. For Marcel Duchamp, creativity was Erotism, a psychological and spiritual quest for continuity, infinity.