Brian Sewell’s review of Ant Noises Two at Saatchi Gallery in today’s Evening Standard is a bit less boring than usual. Beside the boilerplate invective, this time he goes to the roots of the contemporary art scene, or at least he thinks he does. He goes all the way to Marcel Duchamp, “the unwitting author of our misfortunes.” Unwitting? Anyhow, Sewell quotes Duchamp: “I threw the bottle rack and the urinal in their faces, and now they admire them for their esthetic beauty.” And again, this time in connection with Duchamp’s “Large Glass”: “I have offered no explanation myself … what is intended is of no interest; what is interesting is the effect the work has on the spectator—it has nothing to do with me; I have nothing to say … it’s up to the public.” Precisely. The funny thing is that Sewell does not even entertain the possibility that Duchamp is correct and that it is the so-called public that is at the root of our misfortunes. Unwitting or otherwise, Duchamp would be impossible without that public, but the converse is not true. There is no reason to believe, as Sewell does, that art will ever “recover” from Duchamp’s shenanigans because there is no reason to believe that the Twentieth Century art would be much different had Duchamp not been around. At any rate, Duchamp’s own contribution can be better assessed once the public has been placed at he focus of the investigation of contemporary art.