Picasso’s Super-Readymade?

April 16, 2011 A little while ago on this site I mentioned Flavorwire's slideshow of modern and contemporary bicycle art (http://flavorwire.com/161998/the-unofficial-flavorwire-art-bike-survey), and noted a few omissions. However, I neglected one of the most significant contributions to the field: Picasso's "Bull's Head," from 1942, a blunt yet playful work with a powerful presence, consisting of a bicycle seat juxtaposed with handlebars to evoke the work's titular image (an impas.. read more...

New History of Puns Rehabilitates Key Avant-Garde Device

April 14, 2011 Can't get enough of puns? Do your friends start to cringe and gag when you bust out your idea of a quality joke in their presence? Maybe next occasion, gift them a copy of "The Pun Also Rises," forthcoming from champion punner and communications expert John Pollack. The book seems bent on rehabilitating that most maligned of humor categories; its subtitle is "How the Humble Pun Revolutionized Language, Changed History and Made Wordplay More than Some Antic.. read more...

recommend: Found Sound

April 12, 2011 For fans of Duchamp, John Cage, and the readymade, this unassuming tumblr is worth a peruse. "Found- sound" collects miscellaneous abandoned recording cartridges, displaying photographs of the casette tapes in various states of disrepair, along with excerpts from the audio contained within. Is it bacon or bagels that go into deviled eggs? This question is raised in one of the stray answering machine tapes procured by the found-sound folks; these comprise one of the.. read more...

Avowed Conceptualism (Gone Awry?) in Berlin

April 11, 2011 Outside my apartment in Berlin is Schloss Charlottenburg, a large Baroque palace once occupied by Friedrich the Great, and its manicured grounds hat were designed to ape the gardens at Versailles. Further into the "Schlosspark" is a tangle of woods and wildlife home to sleek foxes and lakebound ducks, geese and swans. On a walk around the lake I came across this greying obelisk, crouched unassumingly in a denuded gove of trees. Naturally I wondered about its s.. read more...

Tracking Duchamp’s Perfume Bottle

April 5, 2011 In a recent post (https://www.marcelduchamp.net/news.php?id=576), this website mentioned that Marcel Duchamp's 1921 readymade Belle Haleine: Eau de Voilette, an empty glass perfume bottle branded by the French scent company Rigaud, was taken from Yves Saint Lauren's collection and sold at a Christie's auction for a bank-breaking 8.9 million Euros. What happened to it then? While the answer is not fully clear, it certainly touched down at Berlin's Neue Nationalgalerie, an .. read more...

The poetry that spoke to Nude Descending a Staircase, No.2

March 31, 2011 If Marcel Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase, No.2” (1912) is a song, it might be a down-tempo, acid jazz piece with sound collages assembled from turntable scratching.  NDaS No. 2 may also stutter, tap and hiccup in a systematic, almost cerebral rhythm to suit the movement of the soundtrack.  If it spoke poetry though, it might as well be XJ Kennedy’s interpretation of it in 1961.  In celebration of the National Poetr.. read more...

World readying for John Cage’s 100th birthday.

March 31, 2011 John Cage and Marcel Duchamp are often mentioned in the same breath. Not only were they good friends and avid chess partners (Cage once had Duchamp's board electrically wired for a game of musical chess), Cage was an avowed creative disciple of the elder statesman of the avant-garde. Cage carried on Duchamp's predilection for strict Conceptualism and discipline-bending provocation deeper into the world of audio ( Duchamp had indeed already made use of sound media) ; Cage's .. read more...

Rigaud: a Scent in Need of an Author

March 29, 2011 For those that have been following the attention 'scents' have been receiving in the art world, as we have, Christie's auctioned out the most expensive bottle of perfume ever sold, and it never even held perfume. This is is not surprising, for it was designed by Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray in 1921. Many designers of perfumery cite "self-expression," the olfactory trace of a scent left behind, as a primary interest and stake. A trace is not unli.. read more...

Ubuweb’s “Uncreative” Poet Speaks About Textual Readymades

March 27, 2011 Cabinet Magazine's Gowanus HQ regularly hosts illuminating panels, exhibitions, and lectures on avant-garde practice, conceptual art, and the history of science and culture. Stiff drinks are served in conjunction. March 18th's event was no exception. That typically well-devised evening, titled “Clipping, Copying, and Thinking,” brought together Harvard historian Ann Blair and renegade, Duchampian poet Kenneth Goldsmith, whose site Ubuweb.com has been dubbed ".. read more...