Duchampian News & Views
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Fallis in Wonderland
April 13, 2010The work of Abigail Fallis makes gestures toward both environmental and conceptual "relevance," but it is through Fallis’ absurdist humor that these objects most immediately connect with the viewer. An upcoming show at London’s Pangolin Gallery (through July 3) demonstrates this humor through references to the nonsense poetry of Lewis Carroll — and the occasional nod to the work of Marcel Duchamp.
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Duchamp and the Triumph of the Industrial
April 12, 2010 Almost a century after Duchamp unleashed the first readymades on the world, the industrial aesthetic -- whether simply reminiscent of the factory or truly "found" -- has in some sense conquered both the museum and the workshops of contemporary sculptors and, perhaps more importantly, has bridged the divide between them. A perceptive review of an ongoing show at the Museum of Contemporary Art of San Diego (MCASD) explicates this "family relationship" betwee.. read more... -
With Hidden Noise
April 9, 2010 A blogger who recently visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art was struck by Duchamp's "assisted" readymades -- effectively assemblages -- and in particular the 1916 With Hidden Noise. Sadly the object can no longer be shaken, which makes its title (and the secret noisemaker inside) both poignant and especially compelling. The "noise" is now hidden in the museum forever; it cannot be heard as such, but lurks like an infrathin ghost...or else you can hear it.. read more... -
Pompidou Recreates the Workshop of Andre Breton
April 8, 2010 In conjunction with a more general exhibition of epochal works from its modern collection (1905-60), the Pompidou Center is dedicating a wall to art that was originally housed in Andre Breton's studio. Highlights include three Duchamp editions -- including copies of Why Not Sneeze Rose Selavy? and the Coin de Chastete -- and numerous works by surrealist comrades like Jean Arp, Francis Picabia and Roberto Matta, along with many, many anonymous sculptures of archaeological sign.. read more... -
Duchamp in the Marketplace
April 7, 2010 Debate over the authenticity and resale value of various Duchampian urinals -- copies, appropriations, relics or forgeries -- reveals anxieties around the art market that would otherwise have remained latent. If, as Reuters columnist Felix Salmon points out, the "market" determines the price of a work of art, then these earthenware replicas of working plumbing are worth whatever collectors will pay for them. However, if the artist's (or estate's) certification is required to .. read more... -
The Retinal & the Triumph of Genre
April 6, 2010 As far as the mass art reproduction market goes, representation still rules. According to a recent article by art student Ide Bouldin, the best-selling genres of digital imagery are still conventional or expressionistic landscapes, with depictions of nudes, dogs, wildlife and other figures crowding the rest of the list. "Abstracts" sell a little worse than seascapes and a little better than pictures of dogs.Bouldin notes that competition for sales would ordinarily push young.. read more... -
‘Until Something Else’…
April 5, 2010In his correspondence with Alfred Stieglitz, Duchamp once applauded photography’s power to “make people despise painting,” but acknowledged that photography itself was only useful until something else comes along to make it, too, “unbearable.” From this starting point, culture critic Francisco Ricardo explores various aspects of what this oppositional something else– the “new medium” — may yet be.
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Bringing ‘Something Else’ to Kyoto
April 2, 2010 A major exhibition at the National Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto (MOMAK) highlights many of retiring chief curator Shinji Kohmoto's "favorite" unclassifiable works of art from the collection, including several of Duchamp's readymades.In the exhibit catalog, Kohmoto alludes to these works, which are officially catalogued in the museum's catchall "non-category," as containing a Duchampian "something else" -- a quality that "cannot be contained within classifications (nouns) tha.. read more... -
Tweet Nothings: Appropriations of Peter Ketchum
April 1, 2010A new show at the Norfolk, CT library introduces new and old work by Peter J. Ketchum, a New York artist and gallery owner usually pigeonholed into the “folkpop” category. Antique picture postcards relettered and otherwise detourned. Duchampian jokes aplenty.
(Through April 30; gala reception April 11. peterjketchum.com has details.)