"Readymade"

Marcel Duchamp was a smart-aleck French artist who once bought a urinal which he then submitted to an art exhibition. To Duchamp, this was “readymade” art, an object decreed by an artist to have artistic merit. Ha, Ha. That said (and laughed at), I agree with Duchamp in that art can be what we say it is, even when it started off as something other than art. Recently, smokestacks and decades-old ads painted on building exteriors in Chicago have fit into that category. Let me add the photos of George Burke, who once worked as team photographer for the Cubs and White Sox. Burke was active in the 1930s and ’40s. Supposedly, he was hired by accident. Cubs’ manager Joe McCarthy confused him with the previous team photographer, who shared the same last name. When he found his mistake, McCarthy still gave George Burke a chance if only because his studio on Belmont Avenue was so close to Wrigley Field. The readymades started soon after. Burke got the job even though he wasn’t much of a baseball fan; that’s where talent helped. Baseball often takes a subordinate role in his photos, four of which I recently bought on eBay. Never have members of the 1935 White Sox looked so good. Three of the 4”x6” shots appear to have been done indoors. Ballplayers in uniform with no field in sight—that was daring worthy of Duchamp. But there they are: Rip Radcliff, “Sad” Sam Jones and Merv Shea, in profile. Shea is sitting on a chair, the full jersey logo showing, S-O-X superimposed on a bat, a baseball inside the O. For Radcliffe and Jones, only the S appears in their photos. What stands out are the faces, not one smile among them. Each player has a look somewhere between serious and bemused, as if they know the Sox won’t even play .500 ball that season. Zeke Bonura, the fourth photo, differs in that he is definitely smiling and definitely outside, yet the background is blurred and the S-O-X all but bleached out by the sun. What makes these photos art? In part, because of how they compare to the work of George Brace, Burke’s assistant who took over after Burke suffered a stroke. Brace’s work is pretty straightforward, typically showing player and park. You can all but hear him tell Jim Landis, Smile. Of course, it’s possible that Brace took those photos in 1935, but I doubt it. In any case, I’ll put them Facebook, and you can judge for yourself.