“Blind Man” Show in London

January 11, 2010 The Institute of Contemporary Art has brought the successful exhibition, "For the Blind Man in the Dark Room Looking for the Black Cat that Isn't There," featuring a new printing of Marcel Duchamp's proto-dada journal Blind Man, to London. Taking its title from a quote attributed to Charles Darwin (who compared the blind man's search to the work of mathematicians), the show celebrates the quixotic and speculative nature of the hunt for facts -- especially the facts of art -- .. read more...

Seduction of Duchamp Opens in San Francisco

January 8, 2010 The extraordinary "Seduction of Duchamp" exhibition that gave 35 Bay Area artists a place to comment on Marcel Duchamp's preoccupations and career is re-opening at ArtZone 461 in San Francisco on Saturday, January 9. Two panel discussions, one on chance operations in art (January 19) and the other on the lingering influence of Duchamp on today's artists (January 31), are planned. (For a thoughtful review of the show in its original venue in a former slaughterhouse in nearby .. read more...

(Masked) Man Ray

January 7, 2010 As art critic Richard B. Woodward points out, the artistic establishment that Man Ray and his Dada compatriots were rebelling against now seems impossibly distant from contemporary concerns, which forces contemporary critics to dig beyond mere provocation as a justification for the work's current relevance. Ultimately, yes, Man Ray was a self-created enigma, revealed through his art and forensic biography. But ultimately, the objects and the images have to speak for themselve.. read more...

Dada Drawings of Clara Tice

January 5, 2010 Known as "the Queen of Greenwich Village" in her prime, Clara Tice was an illustrator, designer and (along with Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Stella and others) member of the artistic salon that crystallized around collector Walter Arensberg before his 1922 departure to California -- and then, afterward, continuing on without him. An assortment of her mordant ink drawings is currently on display at Meredith Ward Fine Art in New York, through January 15... read more...

Ready-made or Bespoke: The Artist as Dandy

January 5, 2010 Early reviews of an upcoming exhibition of contemporary images of dandyism in art refer to Marcel Duchamp as a "leitmotif" of the artist as appropriator of utilitarian objects (shoes, belts, wheels, urinals) into gestures that liberate the commonplace through the application of taste. Arguably the successful dandy -- and Andre Breton called Duchamp “the end of the whole historical process of the development of dandyism” -- produces more or less nothing, becoming a commodi.. read more...

Warhol-Duchamp

January 4, 2010 While Andy Warhol cultivated significant creative distance from his dada forebears, that didn't stop him from occasionally documenting the movements of Marcel Duchamp in the 1960s, or from flirting with a more substantial project filming Duchamp on the model of his eight-hour Empire. Those interested in plumbing the connections between the two artists should find plenty to think about at the Warhol Museum's upcoming show, "Twisted Pair: Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol." (May 2.. read more...

The Tree of Wheels

December 31, 2009

As one online commentator notes, “Duchamp must be ‘spinning’ in his grave” at the idea of 35 bicycle wheels reassembled in London’s Bermondsley Square. The designers hope to inspire more of the city’s residents to spin their own wheels instead of taking automotive transport.

read more...

Barcelona Showcases Work of John Cage

December 30, 2009 Through January 10, visitors to Barcelona can experience the work of John Cage and other artists he worked with or learned from, thanks to the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art's current exhibition, "The Anarchy of Silence."Marcel Duchamp is singled out in the show catalog as "the exceptional artistic example in Cage's life, and thus in the present exhibition" for his use of chance as a creative tool, as well as for his multiple collaborations with Cage across various medi.. read more...

The Seduction of Duchamp

December 29, 2009 A truly extraordinary gallery show recently brought together the work of 35 Bay Area artists in an extended comment on Marcel Duchamp's preoccupations and career, from Nude Descending to .. read more...