Duchampian News & Views
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Witch’s Cradle Returns to Brooklyn
September 3, 2010Marcel Duchamp was a seminal figure in the avant-garde film world for decades. In 1943, he appeared in a rarely seen short directed by Maya Deren in connection with the Guggenheim "Art of the Century" exhibit. After too long unscreened, this footage — along with other experimental films of the era — recently showed in Brooklyn.
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Peggy Guggenheim, the Movie?
September 1, 2010 A feature film about the life of Peggy Guggenheim, legendary modern art collector, patron and friend of Marcel Duchamp -- not to mention one-time bride of Max Ernst -- is moving into the development stage. Eleanor Cayre is onboard to lead the project through its early phases along with award-winning producer Nikki Silver. No casting details have yet been announced, but as filming is not even scheduled to begin until 2012, news will likely trickle out over the next few years... read more... -
Deconstructing Duchamp
August 26, 2010The popular show "Seduction of Duchamp" is coming to the Museums of Los Gatos. While many exhibitions inadvertently become a showcase of Duchamp tributes and swipes, this one wears its influence proudly. Chess demonstrations, lectures and other events add to the ambience.
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Reassembling the Readymade
August 24, 2010Chinese artist Zhou Wendou has made his name breaking down barriers between the mass object and the art object, or between the useful and the useless. The Duchampian slant of his aesthetic is on display — or rather, not on display — in his recent untitled demolition of a copy of the Fountain and reassembly of the fragments into a porcelain vase.
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Bearded Ladies of Minnesota
August 23, 2010A recent benefit gala for the Minnesota Institute of Art featured a circus theme and such diversions as bearded ladies on display and a "wheel of dada" spinning for unique and fetishistic prizes. As local society columnist Maura Ryan put it, "Marcel Duchamp has my back."
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Varian Fry: Savior of Thousands (Including Duchamp)
August 19, 2010 New evidence reveals that American journalist Varian Fry, who went to Marseille in 1940 with "a checkbook and a list of 200 names," ended up saving some 4,000 people -- including the leading lights of the then-banned surrealist movement -- from the Nazi regime. Fry helped smuggle Chagall, Ernst, Breton and Duchamp as well as Franz Werfel, Hannah Arendt, Claude Levi-Strauss and thousands of others out of France and into New York, where the surrealists notoriously re.. read more... -
‘Twisted Pair’ Show Ending With a Flourish
August 17, 2010The highly lauded "Twisted Pair" Duchamp-Warhol retrospective at Pittsburgh’s Warhol Museum will end on September 11-12 with a gala symposium of thoughts from scholars like Francis Naumann and Hal Foster and a recital of the music of Duchamp associate John Cage. Not to be missed.
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Rijksmuseum Celebrates Jacques Villon
August 16, 2010Marcel Duchamp’s brother Gaston, who painted under the name Jacques Villon, will be the subject of a special exhibition co-curated by the Amsterdamn Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum. Villon is best known as a neo-impressionist, but the exposure should put his work into a larger context. (Opening in September.)
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The Duchampian Rebus
August 12, 2010Letter and word play is omnipresent in the Duchampian universe. From Rose Selavy and her noteworthy failure to sneeze to L.H.O.O.Q. and the Fresh Widow, Duchamp’s titles occupy absurd, almost self-canceling linguistic spaces of their own. In the company of images and objects, they take on an even less scrutable dimension. And the more the audience opens itself to the free play of language, the deeper the puns and puzzles go.
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