Marcel Duchamp: a Work That Is Not a Work «Of Art»

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Marcel Duchamp: a Work That Is Not a Work «Of Art» F u n d a c i ó n P R O A Marcel duchamp: a work that is not a work «of art» M a r c e l D u c h a m p R o u e d e b i c y c l e t t e (Bicycle Wheel), 1913/1964 © Sucesión M D , 2 0 0 8 , A D A G P/ P a r i s , PROA AUTVIS/Sao Paulo Exhibition General Directors Abbreviations Marcel Duchamp: a work that Jorge Helft BK Bibliothèque Kandinsky Centre de Documentacion et de Recherche du MNAM-CCI is not a work “of art” Adriana Rosenberg C.DF D a v i d F l e i s s C o l l e c t i o n , P a r i s Fundación Proa, Curator C.FK F r e d e r i c k a n d L i l i a n K i e s l e r P r i v a t e Buenos Aires. Elena Filipovic Foundation Collection, Viena 22.11.08 - 01.02.09 General Coordinator C.JMM J a c q u e l i n e M a t i s s e M o n n i e r C o l l e c t i o n C.LZ Luizella Zignone Collection - Cintia Mezza C. M M Moderna Museet Collection, Stockholm TENARIS - TERNIUM Production D B L e s F i l m s d e l ´e q u i n o x e . F o n d s ORGANIZACIÓN TECHINT Iara Freiberg p h o t o g r a p h i q u e D e n i s e B e l l o n - Exhibition Design IUAM I n d i a n a U n i v e r s i t y A r t M u s e u m , B l o o m i n g t o n . P a r t i a l g i f t o f W i l l i a m H . C o n r o y ’s w i f e Secretaría de Cultura de la Caruso-Torricella M D M a r c e l D u c h a m p Presidencia de la Nación architetti, Milan-Paris MMVP M u s é e d ´A r t M o d e r n e d e l a V i l l e d e P a r i s - Preparators M N C P M u s é e N a t i o n a l d ´A r t M o d e r n e Ministerio de Cultura del Sergio Avello 1990 C e n t r e P o m p i d o u , P a r i s - C e n t r e d e C r é a t i o n Industrielle - Achat 1990 Gobierno de la Ciudad Gisela Korth M N C P M u s é e N a t i o n a l d ´A r t M o d e r n e Autónoma de Buenos Aires Lighting 2005 C e n t r e P o m p i d o u , P a r i s - C e n t r e d e C r é a t i o n - Matteo Fiore Industrielle Dépôt du Siège national du Embajada de Francia en Didactics P a r t i C o m u n i s t e f r a n ç a i s , 2 0 0 5 P.c P r i v a t e C o l l e c t i o n la Argentina Rodrigo Alonso P M A P h i l a d e l p h i a M u s e u m o f A r t Cintia Mezza RS R o g e r S c h a l l , P a r i s Graphic Design S.MD S u c c e s s i o n M a r c e l D u c h a m p V i l l i e r s Guillermo Goldschmidt s o u s G r e z , F r a n c e ZB C o r t e s í a Z a b r i s k i e G a l l e r y Jorge Lewis Laura Escobar Assistants Malvina Bali Andrea Cavalletti Andrea Rocchi F u n d a ció n P r o a Av. Pe d r o d e M e n do z a 1929 [C1169AAD] Buenos Aires Argentina [54-11] 4104-1000 www.proa.org i n fo@ proa.org The exhibition original pieces of carefully crafted painting and their challenge to the very foundations Elena Filipovic, Curator or sculpture to be looked at. The invention of of art, then and still to this day. the readymade was not, however, Duchamp’s Marcel Duchamp: A work that is not a Marcel Duchamp: A work that is not a only groundbreaking gesture in this same work “of art” brings to Latin America many work “of art” takes its title from a question period: among other activities, he invented rare and exceptional works for an historic that Marcel Duchamp wrote down one day a new system of measurement, declaring the event possible thanks to loans from major in 1913: “Can one make works that are not experiment “art,” he created multiple photo- museums and Private collections, including ‘of art’?” The question announced a radical graphic copies of his notes, he used chance to the Philadelphia Art Museum, the Moderna shift in the practice of the Frenchman, who make music, and he first used photography Museet in Stockholm, and the Duchamp had mostly been a painter until that time: and perspective to redefine painting—all Estate in France. it signaled the beginning of his defiance between 1913 and 1914. And over the years, of traditional ideas of what counts as an Duchamp continued his diverse experi- artwork and it laid the foundations for what ments, many represented in this exhibition would make him the most influential artist (in some cases through studies, replicas, or of twentieth and twenty-first centuries. reconstructions). His insistent rethinking of the work “of The presentation of the selected art- art” is the focus of this first-ever major solo works on display structures made up of jag- presentation of Duchamp in Latin America, ged, irregular lines and offering no singular, featuring 123 pieces of each form of media fixed, or chronological path, underlines the artist worked in from 1913 to the end of the way in which traditional notions like his life. continuity and aesthetic “progress” make The exhibition begins with the moment little sense in relation to Duchamp’s oeuvre. when Duchamp wrote his famous question, Instead the pieces are organized in group- which coincides with the period in which he ings that reveal the connections between began to conceive of mass-produced “ready- and the persistent return of such seem- made” objects as potential artworks by sim- ingly diverse preoccupations in Duchamp’s ply being selected by the artist (an ordinary work as readymades, optics, perspective, bottle-drying rack he bought at a local hard- transparency, chance, humor, reproduction, ware store, for example). The gesture marked performativity, erotics, and display. In so do- a revolution in art history by refusing the ing, the exhibition points to the complexity idea that art could only be unique and of a set of central ideas in Duchamp’s oeuvre, Readymades questioned the definitions of the work of art In 1913, Duchamp attached a bicycle wheel and the role of the institutions that judge to a stool and watched it spin in his studio. them. The history of art would be changed Room Two years later, he gave it and objects like it forever by the gesture. (a bottle dryer, a snow shovel, among others) None of the “original” readymades exist a name: “readymade.” Those industrially today as all were lost, thrown away, or 2 produced items became artworks by being broken in their early years of existence; only chosen by the artist and extracted from replicas that Duchamp made and authorized their function as useful things. Their during his lifetime are shown in museums selection was not supposed to be subjective and exhibitions around the world. On view and was instead guided by the “beauty of here are various replicas of the readymades indifference,” thus taking art out of the that the artist made in 1964. aesthetic realm and out of a question of either good or bad taste. By being mass- produced and able to be duplicated, they could avoid what the artist called “the cult of uniqueness, of art with a capital ‘A’.” With the readymade, Duchamp proposed that the creative act did not lie anymore in the crafting of an object or in that object’s singular originality, but rather in its selection and in its transfer from everyday life to the art world—through the signature of the artist, its title, and its display in an art institution. Fountain, the name he gave to the porcelain urinal that he signed with the pseudonym R. Mutt and attempted to exhibit at the Society of Independent Artists Exhibition of 1917, was rejected for not being art. It went on to become, in time, the most famous example of the way Duchamp 1 Fountain, 1 9 1 7 / 1 9 6 4.
Recommended publications
  • Checklist of Anniversary Acquisitions
    Checklist of Anniversary Acquisitions As of August 1, 2002 Note to the Reader The works of art illustrated in color in the preceding pages represent a selection of the objects in the exhibition Gifts in Honor of the 125th Anniversary of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Checklist that follows includes all of the Museum’s anniversary acquisitions, not just those in the exhibition. The Checklist has been organized by geography (Africa, Asia, Europe, North America) and within each continent by broad category (Costume and Textiles; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints, Drawings, and Photographs; Sculpture). Within each category, works of art are listed chronologically. An asterisk indicates that an object is illustrated in black and white in the Checklist. Page references are to color plates. For gifts of a collection numbering more than forty objects, an overview of the contents of the collection is provided in lieu of information about each individual object. Certain gifts have been the subject of separate exhibitions with their own catalogues. In such instances, the reader is referred to the section For Further Reading. Africa | Sculpture AFRICA ASIA Floral, Leaf, Crane, and Turtle Roundels Vests (2) Colonel Stephen McCormick’s continued generosity to Plain-weave cotton with tsutsugaki (rice-paste Plain-weave cotton with cotton sashiko (darning the Museum in the form of the gift of an impressive 1 Sculpture Costume and Textiles resist), 57 x 54 inches (120.7 x 115.6 cm) stitches) (2000-113-17), 30 ⁄4 x 24 inches (77.5 x group of forty-one Korean and Chinese objects is espe- 2000-113-9 61 cm); plain-weave shifu (cotton warp and paper cially remarkable for the variety and depth it offers as a 1 1.
    [Show full text]
  • HARD FACTS and SOFT SPECULATION Thierry De Duve
    THE STORY OF FOUNTAIN: HARD FACTS AND SOFT SPECULATION Thierry de Duve ABSTRACT Thierry de Duve’s essay is anchored to the one and perhaps only hard fact that we possess regarding the story of Fountain: its photo in The Blind Man No. 2, triply captioned “Fountain by R. Mutt,” “Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz,” and “THE EXHIBIT REFUSED BY THE INDEPENDENTS,” and the editorial on the facing page, titled “The Richard Mutt Case.” He examines what kind of agency is involved in that triple “by,” and revisits Duchamp’s intentions and motivations when he created the fictitious R. Mutt, manipulated Stieglitz, and set a trap to the Independents. De Duve concludes with an invitation to art historians to abandon the “by” questions (attribution, etc.) and to focus on the “from” questions that arise when Fountain is not seen as a work of art so much as the bearer of the news that the art world has radically changed. KEYWORDS, Readymade, Fountain, Independents, Stieglitz, Sanitary pottery Then the smell of wet glue! Mentally I was not spelling art with a capital A. — Beatrice Wood1 No doubt, Marcel Duchamp’s best known and most controversial readymade is a men’s urinal tipped on its side, signed R. Mutt, dated 1917, and titled Fountain. The 2017 centennial of Fountain brought us a harvest of new books and articles on the famous or infamous urinal. I read most of them in the hope of gleaning enough newly verified facts to curtail my natural tendency to speculate. But newly verified facts are few and far between.
    [Show full text]
  • Duchamp, Chess and the Avant-Garde
    ENDGAME: DUCHAMP, CHESS AND THE AVANT-GARDE Press kit 29.10.2016—22.01.2017 Fundació Joan Miró Now I am content to just play. I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art – and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position. The chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts; and these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chess board, express their beauty abstractly, like a poem. […] I have come to the conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists. Marcel Duchamp. Address at the banquet of the New York State Chess Association in 1952 1 Contents Press release 3 Curator 9 Exhibition layout 12 Sections of the exhibition and selection of works 13 Full list of works 28 Artists and sources of the works 35 Publication 38 Activities 39 General information 41 2 Press release Endgame. Duchamp, Chess and the Avant-Garde Fundació Joan Miró 29 October 2016 – 22 January 2017 Opening: 28 October 2016, 7 pm Curator: Manuel Segade Sponsored by the BBVA Foundation The Fundació Joan Miró presents Endgame: Duchamp, Chess and the Avant-Garde, an exhibition that re-reads the history of modern art through the lens of its relationship to chess. The exhibition, sponsored by the BBVA Foundation and curated by Manuel Segade, looks at chess as a leitmotif that runs through the avant-garde, and metaphorically offers an innovative and playful insight into the history of modern art. Endgame: Duchamp, Chess and the Avant-Garde brings together around eighty works, including paintings and sculptures – some of which have never been shown before in Spain – by some of the key artists of the twentieth century, drawn from major public and private collections in Europe, America, and Middle East.
    [Show full text]
  • Marcel Duchamp'in Yapitlarina Çözümleyici Bir Katalog Çalişmasi Özlem Kalkan Erenus Işik Üniversitesi
    MARCEL DUCHAMP’IN YAPITLARINA ÇÖZÜMLEYİCİ BİR KATALOG ÇALIŞMASI ÖZLEM KALKAN ERENUS IŞIK ÜNİVERSİTESİ MARCEL DUCHAMP’IN YAPITLARINA ÇÖZÜMLEYİCİ BİR KATALOG ÇALIŞMASI ÖZLEM KALKAN ERENUS İstanbul Üniversitesi, İşletme Fakültesi, İngilizce İşletme Bölümü, 1993 Bu Tez, Işık Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Enstitüsü’ne Yüksek Lisans (MA) derecesi için sunulmuştur. IŞIK ÜNİVERSİTESİ 2012 MARCEL DUCHAMP’IN YAPITLARINA ÇÖZÜMLEYİCİ BİR KATALOG ÇALIŞMASI Özet Bu tezin temel amacı, Marcel Duchamp’ın yapıtlar bütününün tek ve sürekli bir yapı içinde oluşumunu değerlendirmektir. Öncelikle yapıtları ve yaşamöyküsü bağlamında, Marcel Duchamp’ın zihinsel oluşumunu belirleyen evreler, etki kaynaklarıyla birlikte incelenmiştir. Sonraki bölümde yapıtları çözümlenerek, Marcel Duchamp’ın düşünsel yapısı sunulmuştur. İzleyen bölümde Duchamp’ın Dada ve Sürrealizm ile ilişkisi değerlendirilmiştir. Son olarak, tam bir gizlilik içinde yürütülen ve ancak ölümünden sonra sergilenen son büyük yapıtı incelenmiştir ve Marcel Duchamp’ın Yirminci Yüzyıl’ın en radikal estetik anlayışını getiren sanatçı olarak sunulması amaçlanmıştır. Anahtar Kelimeler: Marcel Duchamp, Büyük Cam, Hazır Yapım, Yeşil Kutu, Veriler, Yirminci Yüzyıl Sanatı, Dada, Sürrealizm i AN ANALYTICAL CATALOGUE STUDY ON MARCEL DUCHAMP’S WORKS Abstract The main aim of this thesis is to interprete the constitution of Marcel Duchamp’s corpus as a structure of single continuum. Primarily, in the context of his works and biography, the phases defining Marcel Duchamp’s intellectual formation, along with the influencing sources have been examined. In next part, by analyzing his works, Marcel Duchamp’s cogitative structure has been presented. In sequent part Duchamp’s relationship with Dada and Surrealism has been interpreted. Consequently, his last major work, which was carried out in complete secrecy and was exhibited only after his death, has been examined and to represent Marcel Duchamp as the developer of twentieth century’s most radical aesthetic conception has been aimed.
    [Show full text]
  • Fin De Partida: Duchamp, El Ajedrez Y Las Vanguardias
    FIN DE PARTIDA: DUCHAMP, EL AJEDREZ Y LAS VANGUARDIAS Dossier de prensa 29.10.2016—22.01.2017 Fundació Joan Miró «Hoy me conformo con jugar. Todavía soy una víctima del ajedrez. Tiene toda la belleza del arte y mucho más. No puede ser comercializado. El ajedrez es más puro que el arte en su posición social. Las piezas del ajedrez son las mayúsculas del alfabeto que da forma a los pensamientos; y estos pensamientos, aun componiendo un diseño visual en el tablero, expresan su belleza de forma abstracta, como un poema. […] He llegado a la conclusión de que, si bien no todos los artistas son jugadores de ajedrez, todos los jugadores de ajedrez son artistas.» Marcel Duchamp. Conferencia impartida ante el banquete de la New York State Chess Association en 1952 1 Índice Nota de prensa 3 Comisario 9 Plano de la exposición 12 Ámbitos de la muestra y selección de obras 13 Lista completa de obras 28 Artistas y procedencia de las obras 35 Publicación 38 Actividades 39 Información general 41 2 Nota de prensa Fin de partida. Duchamp, el ajedrez y las vanguardias Fundació Joan Miró 29 de octubre de 2016 - 22 de enero de 2017 Inauguración: 28 de octubre de 2016, 19 h Comisario: Manuel Segade Con el patrocinio de la Fundación BBVA La Fundació Joan Miró presenta Fin de partida. Duchamp, el ajedrez y las vanguardias, una exposición que relee la historia del arte moderno a partir de su relación con el ajedrez. La muestra, patrocinada por la Fundación BBVA y comisariada por Manuel Segade, presenta el ajedrez como un leitmotiv continuo de las vanguardias que, metafóricamente, permite comprender desde una óptica innovadora y lúdica la historia del arte moderno.
    [Show full text]
  • Duchamp in Sweden 1933-1970: a Critical Review
    Duchamp in Sweden 1933-1970: A Critical Review This is the first chronological presentation of Marcel Duchamp´s appearance in the context of Swedish art. This review is based on material related to Marcel Duchamp published in Sweden from 1933-1970. My sources are art magazines, literature magazines, essays, monographs, catalogues, and similar printed material in my archive: The Swedish Archive of Artists Books, Malmö, Sweden (SAAB). (See appendix.) The reasons for this critical review are simple. First, I want to show how Duchamp was introduced in Sweden and by whom. Secondly, I aim to trace how and when his works gained public recognition, beyond the contexts of Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism. My study shows that the Swedish art world was the first to recognize this specific quality of Duchamp’s work. In Ulf Linde´s latest book Marcel Duchamp, Stockholm, 1986, page 26, he remarks: “Pontus [Hultén] was the first to interest himself in Duchamp in this country[Sweden] and, partly, he considered the exhibition [“Art in Motion,” 1961] as a tribute to Duchamp.” (1) click images to enlarge 1. Ulf Linde, Marcel Duchamp, 1986. 2. Arturo Schwarz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp,revised and expanded edition, 1997. I have used Arturo Schwarz´s critical catalogue raisonné of 1997, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, the revised and expanded edition, Thames and Hudson, 1997, as a main reference for Duchamp’s works. As far as I know, it is the latest published to date. In the following text an ‘S,’ for Schwarz, followed by the catalogue raisonné number, identifies a work by Marcel Duchamp.
    [Show full text]
  • MARCEL DUCHAMP ¿Jaque Mate Al Arte?
    AULADADE MARCEL DUCHAMP ¿Jaque mate al Arte? Javier Blanco Planelles ADEMÁS SON SIEMPRE OTROS LOS QUE MUEREN Tumba de Marcel Duchamp Cementerio de Rouan DADA • El dadaísmo –también llamado arte dadá- fue un movimiento multidisciplinar • Buscaba acabar con la ortodoxia social, política y cultural con obras deliberadamente absurdas e irracionales • Cristalizó en Zúrich en 1916 como reacción a los valores que causaron la Primera Guerra Mundial. • Su alcance fue internacional gracias a sus provocativas técnicas. • No fue tanto un estilo pictórico como una manera de pensar. • Un objeto artístico no tenía necesariamente que ser creado, podía ser encontrado, escogido o de cualquier otro stio, «Creo que el artista no sabe lo que hace. Le doy aún más importancia al espectador que al artista». "Un objeto ordinario puede ser elevado a la dignidad de una obra de arte por la mera ” Marcel Duchamp aparece en Retrato nº 29 de Victor Obsatz elección de un artista (Doble exposición: rostro completo y perfil) 1953, Museo de Arte de Filadelfia. Marcel Duchamp Duchamp era más un filósofo que un artista. Porque él realmente se dedicó muy poco tiempo a la pintura y después lo que se dedicó fue a promocionarse. Los “ Readymades” (confeccionado) André Breton y Paul Eluard definieron esta categoría en 1938, como “un objeto ordinario elevado a la dignidad de un artista por la elección de un artista” Objetos funcionales producidos en masa que un artista designó como arte, desafiaron muchas suposiciones y tradiciones aceptadas como que la obra de arte debe : • Reflejar las habilidades de un artista • Ser hecha a mano por el artista.
    [Show full text]
  • Les Nouvelles Fables De Fountain 1917-2017 Michaël La Chance
    Document generated on 09/30/2021 11:35 a.m. Inter Art actuel Les nouvelles fables de Fountain 1917-2017 Michaël La Chance Number 127, Supplement, Fall 2017 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/86333ac See table of contents Publisher(s) Les Éditions Intervention ISSN 0825-8708 (print) 1923-2764 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article La Chance, M. (2017). Les nouvelles fables de Fountain 1917-2017. Inter, (127), 1–74. Tous droits réservés © Les Éditions Intervention, 2017 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ LES NOUVELLES FABLES DE 1917-2017 CHRONOLOGIE ÉTABLIE PAR MICHAËL LA CHANCE ANNOTATIONS D’ANDRÉ GERVAIS Table des fables I Fable du géniteur 11 II Fable de Mott 16 III Fable des sœurs 18 IV Fable de la baronne 21 V Fable des besoins sublimés 23 VI Fable de la disparition : la porcelaine brisée 26 VII Fable de la disparition : l’œuvre n’a jamais existé 26 VIII Fable du cheval de Troie 28 IX Fable de la compétition statutaire et de l’exclusion de caste 29 X Fable de la Dame Voyou 30 XI Fable des sanitaires substitués 31 XII Fable mutique 34 XIII Fable de l’œuvre escamotée 38 XIV Fable XYZW [par André Gervais] 39 XV Fable du triomphe de l’abject devant un public médusé 40 XVI Fable de l’œuvre autoengendrée 41 XVII Fable PtBtT 42 XVIII Fable des muses 44 XIX Fable des fantômes 53 XX Fable du pendu femelle 61 XXI Fable du marché aux puces 62 Marcel Duchamp, Pasadena Art Museum, Los Angeles, 1963.
    [Show full text]
  • “The Puppeteer of Your Own Past” Marcel Duchamp and the Manipulation of Posterity
    “The Puppeteer of Your Own Past” Marcel Duchamp and the Manipulation of Posterity Michelle Anne Lee PhD The University of Edinburgh 2010 I, Michelle Lee, declare: (a) that the thesis has been composed by myself, and (b) that the work herein is my own, and (c) that the work herein has not been submitted for any other degree or professional qualification THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH AABBSSTTRRAACCTT OOFF TTHHEESSIISS Regulation 3.1.14 of the Postgraduate Assessment Regulations for Research Degrees refers These regulations are available via:- hhttp://www.acaffairs.ed.ac.uk/Regulations/Assessment/Home.htmttp://www.acaffairs.ed.ac.uk/Regulations/Assessment/Home.htm Name of Candidate: Michelle Lee Address : 5 (2F2) Edina Street Edinburgh Postal Code: EH7 5PN Degree: PhD by research Title of “The Puppeteer of Your Own Past” Thesis: Marcel Duchamp and the Manipulation of Posterity No. of words in the main text of Thesis: 94, 711 The image of Marcel Duchamp as a brilliant but laconic dilettante has come to dominate the literature surrounding the artist’s life and work. His intellect and strategic brilliance were vaunted by his friends and contemporaries, and served as the basis of the mythology that has been coalescing around the artist and his work since before his death in 1968. Though few would challenge these attributions of intelligence, few have likewise considered the role that Duchamp’s prodigious mind played in bringing about the present state of his career. Many of the signal features of Duchamp’s artistic career: his avoidance of the commercial art market, his cultivation of patrons, his “retirement” from art and the secret creation and posthumous unveiling of his Étant Donnés: 1˚ la chute d’eau/2˚ le gaz d’éclairage, all played key roles in the development of the Duchampian mythos.
    [Show full text]
  • A Readymade Case for Collecting Objects of Our Cultural Heritage Along with Works of Art Click Images to Enlarge
    Marcel Duchamp: A Readymade Case for Collecting Objects of Our Cultural Heritage along with Works of Art click images to enlarge Illustration #1 Eau et Gaz Advertisement, Paris,mid- to late 19th and early 20th century I was surprised to receive a recent loan request from the Centre Pompidou Museum in Paris for an Eau et Gaz sign from our Art Science Research Laboratory collection here in New York. Eau et Gaz advertisements (see illustration #1) are vestiges from the 19th century Paris, when signs stating “water and gas on every floor” were affixed to the front of buildings to distinguish those premises featuring the modern services that we now take for granted in large cities. The Pompidou curators realized that their slated exhibition of Marcel Duchamp’s important manuscript notes (mostly written between 1910-’50’s) would be greatly enhanced by including the cultural context that Duchamp drew upon for his early ideas and for related works that followed, even including those which came to light after his death. Duchamp used the “water and gas” theme from the beginning, in his earliest original notes (1911-15) and first selection of these notes for publication (This Quarter, journal 1932) to the cover of his first Catalogue Raisonné (1958) (where he used a faux “readymade” water and gas sign for the boxes of his two deluxe versions), and most significantly, to the largest and last secret work Given 1. the waterfall 2. the illuminating gas, [1944-66], only revealed after he died in 1968. (1) click to enlarge Illustration #2 Marcel Duchamp, deluxe edition of Robert Lebel’s Sur Marcel Duchamp, 1958 © 2000 Succession Marcel Duchamp ARS, N.Y./ADAGP, Paris Without knowledge about French water and gas signs, now infrequently found on buildings (for all Parisian apartments must be so equipped by law, and landlords need not brag about these services), Duchamp’s major readymade work Eau et Gaz (1958) loses much of its meaning.
    [Show full text]
  • Ga.Pi. News Ga.Pi. News Alexina & Marcel
    Ga.Pi. News Ga.Pi. News Alexina & Marcel New York Times - Dec. 22, 1995 working forever. During much of hospital with a free clinic attached, its construction, Mrs. Duchamp and his second wife, the former Ag- Alexina Duchamp, the widow was her husband's sole confi- nes Mitchell. of Marcel Duchamp, died on dante. Alexina Sattler was born She at first thought of becoming Wednesday at an artist and for her home in Vil- a time studied liers-sous-Grez, sculpture with near Paris. She Brancusi in Paris. was 89. As a for- In December 1929 mer daughter-in- she married the law of Henri Ma- son of Henri Ma- tisse, the widow tisse, Pierre, who of Duchamp and was to become a a close friend of distinguished art John Cage and dealer on Madison Jasper Johns, Avenue. When she was in her her husband was later years the mobilized in Paris unquestioned at the outbreak of doyenne of the World War II, she survivors of a ran the gallery for great age in art, some months. dance and music. After a divorce She had close from Pierre Ma- ties to Philadel- tisse in 1949, phia and took she married Du- pride in being an champ in 1954. honorary trust- They lived in New ee of its Muse- York, in Paris and um of Art, which in the summer has by far the in Cadaques in largest collection northern Spain. of Duchamp's After Duchamp's work. She was death in 1968, delighted when she became close in 1967 his last to the composer major work, the Cage and to a new scenographic circle of friends.
    [Show full text]
  • Les Nouvelles Fables De Fountain 1917-2017
    LES NOUVELLES FABLES DE 1917-2017 CHRONOLOGIE ÉTABLIE PAR MICHAËL LA CHANCE ANNOTATIONS D’ANDRÉ GERVAIS Table des fables I Fable du géniteur 11 II Fable de Mott 16 III Fable des sœurs 18 IV Fable de la baronne 21 V Fable des besoins sublimés 23 VI Fable de la disparition : la porcelaine brisée 26 VII Fable de la disparition : l’œuvre n’a jamais existé 26 VIII Fable du cheval de Troie 28 IX Fable de la compétition statutaire et de l’exclusion de caste 29 X Fable de la Dame Voyou 30 XI Fable des sanitaires substitués 31 XII Fable mutique 34 XIII Fable de l’œuvre escamotée 38 XIV Fable XYZW [par André Gervais] 39 XV Fable du triomphe de l’abject devant un public médusé 40 XVI Fable de l’œuvre autoengendrée 41 XVII Fable P • B • T 42 XVIII Fable des muses 44 XIX Fable des fantômes 53 XX Fable du pendu femelle 61 XXI Fable du marché aux puces 62 Marcel Duchamp, Pasadena Art Museum, Los Angeles, 1963. Photo : Julian Wasser. En avril 1917, une pièce de céramique est déposée au Grand Central Palace, sur Lexington Avenue, afin d’être exposée au salon de la Société des artistes indépendants de New York. Cet urinoir est enregistré sous le nom de R. Mutt. Malgré les principes de base de la Société, dont l’absence de sélec- tion, quelques membres du comité directeur contestent son statut d’œuvre et l’objet n’est pas exposé le soir du vernissage. On apprend plus tard que R. Mutt serait un pseudo dont le prénom est Richard, que l’œuvre est inti- tulée Fountain, que l’adresse du mystérieux R.
    [Show full text]