Duchampian News & Views
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From Shocking To Merely Poetic….
March 30, 2010Appraisals of the work of Surrealist photographers point out that images that would once have been revolutionary statements of the modern now seem passively dreamlike, dated, nostalgic.
(“Twilight Visions” will run at New York’s International Center of Photography through May 9.)
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MOMA and the Readymade Concept
March 29, 2010Although the Museum of Modern Art’s acquisition of the “@” symbol raised eyebrows, the Duchampian overtones of bringing a piece of anonymous typography into the museum are obvious. The act tests the barrier between art and industrial design — are all marks of punctuation theoretically worth contemplating in the museum context? Can a semiotic element be “owned,” or could other institutions claim other versions of the “@”?
And what if MOMA’s “@” is a forgery?
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Unauthorized Fountains Make Waves
March 25, 2010 The philosophical ramifications of Marcel Duchamp's estate objecting to the circulation of unauthorized and unsigned copies of the epochal Fountain by Arturo Schwarz are not lost on The Economist. The often-wry weekly journal notes that while Schwarz, who sold a limited edition of 12 hand-crafted replicas of the original urinal, claims that the newly discovered copies were created under Duchamp's supervision, collectors do not relish the mystique of their readymades being dil.. read more... -
Exhibitions in a Box
March 24, 2010 Independent Curators International has taken up the challenge posed by projects like Marcel Duchamp's Boite-en-valise to present suitcase-sized traveling exhibitions of art. These miniature art collections contain ephemera, video, archival materials and small-scale original works curated to allow display space operators a full ready-to-install show that they can configure to fit their needs.One of the first of these "exhibitions in a box," a retrospective look at the groundb.. read more... -
Starry Messenger
March 23, 2010 Those in central California may find food for thought at a UC-Davis lecture on "Marcel Duchamp's Comet Haircut and Astronomy" coming up next month. Design professor James Housefield will address the suggestive linkages between Duchamp's starry haircut, the artist's lifelong interest in optics, and other uses of astronomical material in art and popular imagery. By inscribing the celestial onto the personal, one might argue, Duchamp bridged the abyss between the invisible and t.. read more... -
Duchamp and Type Treatment
March 22, 2010 Richard Kegler created his first font to reproduce Marcel Duchamp's handwriting for his graduate thesis on the Large Glass. Since then, his company P22 has developed hundreds of typefaces and a website that realizes the original thesis through animation.The Duchamp font is no longer available, so those hoping to type in the artist's script will be disappointed...or will simply need to teach themselves to emulate his readymade example... read more... -
The Shock of the New (Again)
March 19, 2010The 1982 BBC series Shock of the New is often considered the greatest televised art program of all time, but its observations about post-impressionist artists and their concerns are unavailable on home video. However, out of Robert Hughes’ sprawling five-hour epic, fragments — like the eight-minute Duchamp segment — have been extracted and are available online.
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Last Tour for Cunningham Dancers
March 18, 2010 When Merce Cunningham, sometime collaborator with Marcel Duchamp, died last year, his will instructed that his eponymous dance company embark on one last tour and then, possibly, dissolve. That tour is going on now and will conclude on December 31 2011 -- at New York's Park Avenue Armory. After that point, some of his works will be archived; the fate of the rest is as yet unknown.While two explicitly Duchampian dances (Walkaround Time and An Occasion Piece) may not figure on .. read more... -
Three-Minute Wonder: The ‘Fountain’ Returns
March 17, 2010Film director Mike Figgis recently had the chance to install a copy of the notorious Fountain in a Liverpool restroom and recorded reactions from members of the public. The results were suggestive of generations of received critical response and, surprisingly, revealed often ignored aspects of the work’s gendered and functional nature. The video, produced on behalf of the Tate Modern Liverpool, is now available.