Title Curatorship and Post-Duchampian Art in Transnational Contexts Type The sis URL https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/15105/ Dat e 2 0 1 8 Citation de Menezes, Caroline (2018) Curatorship and Post- Duchampian Art in Transnational Contexts. PhD thesis, University of the Arts London. Cr e a to rs de Menezes, Caroline Usage Guidelines Please refer to usage guidelines at http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/policies.html or alternatively contact [email protected] . License: Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives Unless otherwise stated, copyright owned by the author Curatorship and Post-Duchampian Art in Transnational Contexts Caroline Ramos Lourega de Menezes A Thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) University of the Arts London December 2018 Abstract Curatorship and Post-Duchampian Art in Transnational Contexts Supervisor: Michael Asbury Author: Caroline Ramos Lourega de Menezes This research examines the role of the artist Marcel Duchamp as a curator, his legacy in the field of curatorship and how the curatorial procedures engen- dered by him can be transposed to contemporaneity. It presents the dynamics of Post-Duchampian art as those artistic manifestations that make regular use of abstract concepts and which are nurtured by the context to which they be- long. Bauman and Foucault provided the sources for the theoretical framework. Based on their texts, the first chapter discusses the change in society marked by the shift from Modern to contemporary times. Its impact on the art field is considered through a perspective derived from art history. It also explains why Duchamp was an important agent in this transition and how a new arrangement of the world can be understood through his legacy. The second chapter analyses Duchamp’s actions in organizing and conceiving exhibitions, treating them with the importance they are due and filling a significant gap in the field of curator- ship. A critical approach investigates Duchamp artwork’s presence at the Armo- ry Show, Duchamp’s function as head of exhibitions at the Société Anonyme and his position as générateur-arbitre of the Surrealist exhibitions. Some of his iconic artworks (e.g. Large Glass) are examined in depth under the prism of Duchamp’s curatorship. A comparison between Duchamp’s pioneering curatorial think- ing and the tendencies installed by Alfred Barr at the Museum of Modern Art in New York concludes this chapter. In the last chapter, as the characteristics of Duchamp’s curatorial practice have just been presented, thus Duchamp’s last curatorial work Étant Donnés is analysed. Next, this research introduces the case studies: the Brazilian artists Hélio Oiticica and Cildo Meireles to bring about a clearer understanding of Post-Duchampian art in transnational contexts. It ends reviewing the solo exhibitions of each of these artists at Tate Modern, in London. This work is dedicated to the memory of my grandmothers: Ione Lourega de Menezes Therezinha de Carvalho Ramos Acknowledgements I would first of all like to express my immense gratitude to my hus- band Fabrizio Augusto Poltronieri for his encouragement, patience, love and counsel throughout the development of my PhD research. I am the luckiest per- son to have such a knowledgeable and generous partner always at my side. In the same way, I must show all my gratitude to my family in Rio and in São Paulo. Wherever I was in the world, they solidly supported me and always assisted me in every possible and in seemingly impossible ways, in particular my parents Maria Rosita and Paulo Afonso Lourega de Menezes. This research would not be viable without the guidance of my director of studies Michael Asbury, whose suggestions and teachings were of foremost importance. The confidence that he has in me and his friendship have been es- sential during all these past years. This research would not have reached the high standard desired with- out the help of my friend Luciana Dumphreys who has proofread the writing. Her dedication will always be remembered. I would also like to thank the artist Cildo Meireles for the conversa- tions that inspired this study. In the same way I am grateful to my colleagues at Studio International, especially Miguel Benavides, who has always trusted me and motivated me to write. I truly appreciate his hospitality during the time I spent researching in New York and Philadelphia. Next, I must acknowledge the staff of the Brooklyn Museum Archives for all the material offered for this research. This research benefitted greatly from my time in Germany at the Zen- trum für Kunst und Medien (ZKM), Karlsruhe and for this reason I also owe spe- cial thanks to Peter Weibel and Frieder Nake, to my outstanding friends of the German Chancellor Fellowship and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. In addition, I would like to give special thanks to my friends and col- leagues with whom at some point during these past years I have shared great and inspiring moments and exchanged a lot of ideas, at the University of the Arts London, TrAIN Research Centre or in the Studying Latin American Art Group, in particular to: Camila Mello, Fernanda Albertoni, German Alfonso Adaid, Iso- bel Whitelegg, Marcela Montoya, Mauro Espíndola and Suzana Vaz. Lastly, this project could never have been completed without the en- thusiasm and encouragement of dear friends. Some of these wonderful people deserve a distinctive mention, my close friends and allies Lilian Lopes, Laura Spelman and Rebeca Moreira, my former flatmates Candelaria Marcos Expósito and Carolina Beal and my favourite editor in chief, Kathia Ferreira. Table of contents Introduction 11 1. The impact of Marcel Duchamp on the transition in contemporary art 39 1.1 Aesthetic propositions engendered by Duchamp 42 1.2 The inconsonant definitions of art history and the impossibility of avant-garde 58 1.3 A new arrangement of the world 74 1.4 Art after Duchamp 82 1.5 In the realm of Post-Duchamp art 89 2. Duchamp’s curatorial practice 95 2.1 The early days of Duchamp’s curatorial practice 96 2.2 Société Anonyme and the International Exhibition of Modern Art 127 2.3 Modern Art in New York - Relations and tensions between the Société Anonyme and MoMA 181 2.4 Surrealist exhibitions 198 3. The legacy of Duchamp’s curatorial practice 229 3.1 Étant Donnés: Curatorial Testament 238 3.2 First case study: Hélio Oiticica 261 3.3 Second case study: Cildo Meireles 282 3.4 Curating Post-Duchampian art in a Transnational Context 296 Conclusion 319 List of figures 335 Bibliography 343 Introduction The importance of Marcel Duchamp’s (1887-1968) artistic work has already been the focus of several writings and heated academic and artistic de- bates. The reason for this is his undeniable contribution to the development and consolidation of new artistic languages that emerged in the effervescent period that marked the 20th century (Tomkins 2005, 2013; Cabanne 1971, 1997; Nau- mann 2000, 2012). Duchamp’s influence is consolidated not only in art history but also in the history of exhibitions, since the artist made explicit their modus operandi as few have done, by playing with their basic constituent elements (Fil- ipovic 2008, Kachur, 2003). Although Duchampian studies have already given rise to a vast litera- ture, Duchamp’s activities described in these publications are essentially charac- terized as the activities of an artist. Sometimes, he is also categorized as a player who incorporates his role unreservedly, especially from 1923 onwards, when he said he would dedicate himself almost entirely to chess. Nevertheless, when I started preparing what would be my PhD proposal, it was virtually impossible to name a scholar who would dare to openly describe Duchamp as a curator. At this point, around 2007, Duchamp’s activity as a curator was fairly misunderstood or perhaps unknown. This oversight was the driving force that ignited this research, whose main cornerstone and greatest contribution is precisely the expansion of percep- tions and definitions about what Duchamp’s practice truly was, most specifical- ly in the field of curating. My aim thus became not only to make explicit his role as a curator, but also to go beyond the action of revealing his curatorial practice. I want with this research to deeply investigate Duchamp’s curatorial practice in order to comprehend and map his methods. My hypothesis was that Duchamp’s curatorial practice could be useful as a toolbox to understand the development of exhibition-making when handling contemporary art. That which at the beginning of the research process presented itself as a hypothesis and an uneasy feeling, proved to be the correct trail to follow. This path led me to encounter in Duchamp’s curating, a paradigm to a better under- 11 standing of the curatorial strategies behind the transnational display of contem- porary art, in particular, when dealing with artistic expressions that are directly derived from Duchamp’s bequest, a post-Duchampian art. Post-Duchampian is a terminology that I am going to explore in chapter 1. The fabrication of the term is justified as it embraces a type of art that pertains to contemporary art, but has its own logic, dynamics and its own defining characteristics. Here, I use ‘fabrica- tion’ to imply that it is an expression that was built from prepared components, something invented from given information, and also as a Duchampian pun, it is a term that carries the sense that it can also be a piece of fiction, like the inconso- nant definitions of art history also discussed in chapter 1. Thus, the second orig- inal contribution of this work is to provide an analysis of Duchamp’s curatorial thought in contemporary case studies associated with post-Duchampian art.