Pasadena Magazine is the bi-monthly magazine of Pasadena and its surrounding areas – the diverse, historically rich and culturally vibrant region that includes Glendale, the Eastside of Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley all the way to Claremont.
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Along with an estimated 40 additional works by other notable artists, Norton Simon's Duchamp to Pop offers museum visitors an intriguing perspective on the formation of the Pop Movement and is an optical journey through Duchamp's avant-garde vision. A vi- sion that infl uenced Pop Art's most recognized and celebrated fi gures including Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha and Jim Dine. From March 4 through August 29, visitors can discover and explore the world of Pop Art through thought-provoking works by various contemporary artists as well as the works of Duchamp himself. "Duchamp paved the way and allowed for artists of the Pop generation to take things that they were being fed by com- merce or commercial advertisers and lift them and place them into art contexts," explains Norris. "Duchamp changed the way people were viewing art—or at least he was trying to. The exhibition shows how Duchamp opened up the way for other Pop artists to exist." Duchamp's infl uence on the Pop world is undeniable. Whether his specifi c intention or not, he loosed the rigid bounds of art criticism and changed the defi nition of what made art, art. To many, there is no obvious artistic interpretation of a postcard of the Mona Lisa, with mustache and goatee. But in Duchamp's eyes, everything, within the appropriate context, could be perceived as art. "I think what Duchamp has done is really engaged the viewer in a different way in that he stopped us for a second in our tracks, so that we pause and refl ect on the artist's intention or the intention of an object in its context," explains Norris. "One of his big contributions to 20 th century art—and 21 st —would be the ready- made, which really opened up what could be considered artwork." In fact, that cheap postcard featuring Mona Lisa with a mustache, which Duchamp titled L.H.O.O.Q., was immensely infl uential, inspiring an interpretation from the Pop prince Andy Warhol, who created his own version with a silkscreen of da Vinci's most well known work, along with his iconic Campbell's soup cans and Brillo cleaning pads, which, like Duchamp before him, altered context and turned commonplace subjects into art. Notable works from numerous Pop giants who followed in Duchamp's sizeable footprints will be on display, inviting visitors to discover for themselves the evidence of Duchamp's infl uence on his artistic admirers. Duchamp inspired generations of artists past and present, and thanks to the Norton Simon's evocative exhibit, will inspire generations to come. Don't Judge A Book By Its Cover Antiquarian book collector and dealer, Dan Whitmore, isn't your average rare bookseller. As a young, dashing 30-something, he brings a novel approach on what it really takes to make it in his fi eld. STORY BY // SARA SMOLA PHOTO BY // MOWRY ∫ IN THE AGE OF THE IPAD AND KINDLE, BOOKS HAVE BECOME A RARITY BUT EVEN RARER STILL, ARE FIRST EDITIONS FROM HISTORY'S PAST. DAN WHITMORE OF WHITMORE RARE BOOKS IN ALTADENA HAS MADE IT HIS MISSION TO TRACK DOWN RARE TOMES FROM THE PAST SIX CENTURIES—EVERYTHING FROM THE ERA OF THE PRINTING PRESS TO THE CLASSICS OF THE 21ST CENTURY, YET STOCKING ONLY THE FINEST QUALITY BOOKS. After deciding a life practicing law was less than fulfi lling and with a burning desire to pursue an entrepreneurial endeavor, Whitmore took a leap of faith and returned to his passion of collecting. "Growing up, I was a collector and I think there's some people who just have that hoarder, packrat mentality and to some extent collector is like a more refi ned version of that. I had that sense of wanting to fi nd special things and then keeping them and that started when I was very young," says Whitmore. The idea to collect literature stemmed from when his brother received a gift from his godfather in the form of a set of fi rst edi- tions. "He received these fi rst editions from his godfather and only cared about them in that I wanted them. And he still has them for, I think, the same reason," Whitmore laughs. Whitmore began his own collection, starting with a tattered Hemingway novel he bought for a mere $5 off a stranger, for no other reason than the author was a favorite. "When I was in law school, I was walking home from class one day and someone who was down on their luck had a blanket on the side of the street with a few CDs and this and that and I saw a copy of Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls—no dust jacket, really crappy condition. If I saw it now, I wouldn't think twice about it but I brought [COMMUNITY] 12 FEBRUARY 2016 T A L K A B O U T T O W N PULSE the pulse_Feb16.indd 12 1/20/16 2:18 PM