20th CENTURY EXPRESSIONS VIII: Marcel Duchamp

Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1951 (reconstructed – originalcreated 1913, lost.)

Duchamp, (French, 1887 – 1968) was one of the most influential Modernist artists. His ideas and use of media opened the way for much Contemporary art. Moreover, his attitude to the conceptual relationship between artwork – artists – audience - world raised questions that were wrestled with for the rest of the century. This work from 1913, uses the ‘readymade’ (tout fait)’ object which we saw last session with the Surrealists, who were working from 1924 onwards. It was Duchamp who originated the idea of using a 3-D object from everyday life though.

Duchamp started out as a painter, and created works showing the influence of Cezanne and Cubism as a young man. He came to regard painting as an ‘assisted readymade’ in itself, because of the industrial processes behind commercially available paints.

Two nudes, 1910, oil on canvas, 98 x 81cm

Duchamp’s early style. In the ‘Nudes’ image on the right, we can see some distortion of the images and the faces are non existent. However the figures do have a sense of some coarse modelling…they do not read as totally flat mainly because of the tonal variation that reads as sunlight on the figures. There is no sense of linear perspective though, and any illusion of reality is destroyed by the extra figure in the foreground, which is much smaller. This makes the image read like a ‘study’ for a work, rather than a work resolved and complete in itself.

Fountain, men’s urinal, signed ‘R Mutt’,1917

‘Fountain’, 1917 is probably Duchamp’s most infamous work. It is a men’s urinal, placed on it’s back. The title is obviously a tease or joke, which was typical of Duchamp who, like the Dadaists/Surrealists, loved word games and puns. The piece was presented to the Society of Independent Artists in 1917. They broke the rules of their own society by censoring the item. They did exhibit the work, but hid it behind a screen where it could not be seen. Duchamp protested. This work, in no way changed or juxtaposed with any other object (except the institution), caused great controversy and changed the way art was considered for all time.

Duchamp declared himself to beuninterested in the formal qualities of art, but rather, for how it might make you think. In fact, one of his rules for

selecting a readymade object was ‘visual indifference’, ie NOT choosing it

because it was a beautiful or interesting shape.

Because of the Fountain drama, the Society ended up confirming that an object can be considered art even if the artist has had no input into its creation at all. It is the choices the artist makes, said the Society, which makes it art. This is an emphasis, then, on the ideas behind a piece of art. This would be re-examined in the 1960s with such artists as Andy Warhol, in the 1990s with Jeff Koons, and many others in various ways. It also suggests that the context in which an object is placed is of significance.

Bottle dryer, replica 1936, after original of 1914, lost. Theprongs on this bottle dryer are waiting to poke into thewet bottles and hold them while they dry. It has beenconsidered as an erotic object for this reason. Duchamprepeatedly explored the idea of “bachelor objects” in his work.

Many of these readymades were lost shortly afterbeing found and exhibited. Duchamp ‘gave permission’ forreplicas to be sourced and exhibited over the decades. On one occasion he was overseas and needed to ask to get his sister to sign it and title it. He called this a ‘readymade from a distance.’ This pokes fun at the value that is placed on originality and the artist’s hand.

3 Standard Stoppages, 1913-14

This work is about time… ‘the 4th dimension’; and about accident, which the Dadaists Surrealists would use a few years later. it also uses a convention – measurement. Like language, this convention is an agreed-upon system of signs and codes that help us organise our lives and our world. Such conventions are increasingly important as society becomes more and more Industrialised and fast cars and space rockets depend upon measurements.Duchamp said of this work that it was ‘playing with a metre.’ It involved dropping a metre-long piece of string onto a canvas from a 1 metre height on 3 different occasions, allowing it to twist naturally in space. It was glued onto each canvas, just as it fell, then the canvas cut to the shape of the string, and created a new ‘ruler’ or template which was still 1 metre long but a different shape to normal.

What can we say about this work in terms of its aesthetics; and is this important?

L.H.O.O.Q, print of Mona Lisa altered with pencil, 1919, 19 x 12cm >>>>>>

Gender-bending and iconoclasm

The initials in the name of this work are a pun, which Duchamp often used. When these initials are read out in French , it sounds like ‘she has a hot arse’. (It possibly refers to Da Vinci’s being gay.) This work is somewhat amusing to us now, but 100 years ago it would have been read very differently. Using the cultural frame, what are we to make of this image?

‘Iconoclasm’ means to break down the things that are generally agreed to be sacred.

Long before Dame Edna Everage, Duchampcreated a second identity for himself, ‘Rrose Selavy’, which is a pun on ‘Eros, c’est la vie’, (meaning, Eros, that is life.) (Eros is the life-force according to Freud. We call things ‘erotic’ meaning sexual, but the world Eros means more than simply sex. It is life.) HeEven had Selavy ‘sign’ some of his artworks. This acted to bring into question the idea of the artist as individual genius; that is, the idea of authorship. Andy Warhol and other post-modernists would work on this idea of authorship and originality later in the century.

Man Ray, photograph Of Rrose Selavy, 1921.

Doesn’t really look like an artwork, does it….? This image was created on two glass panels. The use of glass was a radical approach. The top half is the Bride’s Domain, and the bottom is the ‘Bachelor’s apparatus’. We can see that both Bride and Bachelors are represented as some sort of mechanical apparatus. The machine to the right in the Bachelor’s frame is a chocolate-grinding machine, which we do know Duchamp found to be some sort of sexual symbol. The several cone shapes curving above this machine were coloured by dust that gathered on the glass as it lay for some years in Duchamp’s studio – see photo by Man Ray.

The Bride stripped bare by her bachelors, even, (The Large Glass), 1915-1923, Oil, varnish,lead foil, lead wire, and dust on two glass panels, 277.5 x 177.8 x 8.6 cm

Ray, Dust breeding, 1920. It was said this work looked like an aerial shot of a war zone, with the dust bits looking like clouds where bombs had hit.

This work, unofficially referred to as ‘The Green Box’, contains notes, drawings etc which supposedly seek to explain The bride stripped bare by her bachelors, even, , done years before. In fact though, the book deliberately causes more confusion. Different notes are written in different coloured inks, and stories created about the characters of the ‘bride’ and her ‘bachelors’. Duchamp created several ‘originals’ of this book, by hand. Note the publisher credit in the citation below.

The bride stripped bare by her bachelors, even, 1934, Rrose Selavy, publisher. Book with illustrations about the work of the same name.

As we saw with Bicycle Wheel, and the Large Glass,Duchamp had an ongoing interest in circular motion, andhow to depict or describe it. He conducted experimentswith rotating, off-centre circles and what effect they had on the viewer. When it is plugged in and rotating,The circles appear to come out towards the viewer.

Again, this is a ‘sculpture’ of sorts, more properly a machine to create visual effects. It is a kinetic sculptureand involves the dimension of time to create the work.

Rotary Demisphere, (Precision Optics), 1925. Painted papier-mâché demisphere fitted on velvet-covered disk, copper collar with plexiglass dome,motor, pulley, and metal stand, 148.6 x 64.2 x 60.9 cm

There is text written around the outside circle which reads: "RROSE SÉLAVY ET MOI ESQUIVONS LES ECCHYMOSES DES ESQUIMAUX AUX MOTS EXQUIS," "Rrose Sélavy and I dodge the eskimos' bruises with exquisite words.“ This sounds, and is, totally nonsensical and Dada – except there is a reason. He actually chose the words on the basis of they way they echo each other.

50cc of Paris Air, 1919, broken in America and repaired 1949

Duchamp had this ampoule made for his friendAnd patron, Walter Arensberg. Ampoules storedvarious medicines in Pharmacies. It originallyheld some kind of medicine, and Duchamp gotthe pharmacist in Paris to empty it, then re-sealIt – this had the effect of sealing in the airof the city.

However in 1949 it was accidentally broken andthen repaired – no longer, obviously, holdingthe air of Paris but then, of New York….so….?

DVD on Duchamp.

Discusses one of his most famous works, Nude descending a staircase. Watch for:• Discussion about moving pictures; • Muybridge’s ground-breaking work capturing movement of figures;• Consider how technology was impacting upon the way artists, and people

generally, viewed and considered the world.• Development of consideration of Time – the 4th dimension – in art;• The tradition of the Nude in art. Remember Olympia.

The DVD starts with talking really fast. Don’t have a clue why. This slows down. Listen for the comments about the artwork being read out.

ResourcesMundy, Jennifer, Ed. Duchamp Man Ray Picabia. London: 2008, Tate Publishing.Lucie-Smith, Edward, Lives of the Great 20th Century Artists. London: 1999, Thames & Hudson.

Metropolitan Museum of Art: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/duch/hd_duch.htm

Joubert, Alain, director, Palettes Collection, DVD, From Duchamp to Pop Art. Gymea Library DVD 709.04071/FROM

Gayford, Martin, ‘ Duchamp’s fountain: the practical joke that launched an artistic revolution,’ The Telegraph, Feb 16 2008.

Dada Art: http://www.dadart.com/dadaism/dada/035a-duchamp-cage.html

Q: Explain how Jeffrey Smart and Glenn Murcutt have responded to the worldaround them in these artworks.

Plate 3: Jeffrey Smart, born 1921, Australia, living in Italy. Morning, Yarragon siding, 1982–4. Oil on canvas, 100 × 134 cm.

Smart painted this picture from a photograph he took of a railway station whiletravelling in country Victoria. A siding is a section of track off the main railwayline. It is used for loading, unloading and storing trains.

This house was commissioned by the Magney family to be built on the location oftheir favourite coastal camping site.

Plate 4: Glenn Murcutt, architect, born 1936, Australia. Magney House, 1982–4, Bingie Point, New South Wales. Corrugated iron, steel, glass and brick.