Art party draws line on New Year's resolutions

By MARY ANN MARGER Times Art Critic

© St. Petersburg Times, published December 17, 1999

Here's my ultimate New Year's party to close out the old millennium and open the new:

• The cast: Leonardo da Vinci, Marcel Duchamp, Jason Martin
• The guests: loved ones, art lovers, a few techies and Edvard Munch
• Props: Large assortment of sophisticated technical equipment, black felt tip marker (fine point), white canvas, white paint, brush, Edvard Munch's woodcut The Scream
• The scenario: At the stroke of 9, Leonardo da Vinci will execute the Mona Lisa in as many contemporary mediums as he wishes. Leonardo, who lived most of his life in the first half of the millennium (1459-1519), was a clever guy, and I expect he'll take to photography, holography, xerography, computer scanning devices, video projection and other technological inventions with minimal coaching from the techies.

At the stroke of 11, Marcel Duchamp will select a single version of the Mona Lisa and, with a black felt tip marker, will give her a mustache and a goatee, just as he did in 1919 on some cheap reproductions of Mona Lisa, which he retitled L.H.O.O.Q

He'll then have an hour to justify his action to Leonardo.

I expect he'll tell him that, since the Dark Ages, art has maintained its vitality through change, and that, in this century, art has been redefined (largely by Duchamp).

And I expect Leonardo will buy the idea.

At the stroke of midnight, the gaunt, bald-headed figure in Edvard Munch's The Scream will jump off the wall and utter a blood-curdling, spine-chilling shriek that will send all our Y2K problems through the floor.

And then he'll grin.

Then Jason Martin, an artist exhibiting in the Brooklyn Museum show that has Mayor Giuliani in such a snit, will lay a white canvas on the floor. With a brush the width of the canvas, he'll execute a single stroke of white paint, covering the entire surface end to end. (He has two such works on view, but not in white.)

A clean slate for the 21st century.

We'll celebrate with hoppin' john (black-eyed peas and rice for good luck) and champagne.