Duchamp with a star shaved into the back of his head, and an inverse mohawk
- an unusually progressive hair style for 1919
As LAS’ Tom Crowe shows in the LAS Summer Exhibition, Duchamp’s urinal was first exhibited 100 years ago. That was at the cutting-edge Armory Show in Paris, known for breaking the mold. Duchamp’s entry to the show, “Fountain” a urinal on its back with “R. MUTT” painted on as a sort of signature, was so odd that it was not recognised as being an art piece.
To see “Fountain” commemorated in style, go to the LAS Summer Exhibition, on 23-31Aug17 at St Laurence’s Church, Ludlow (link: http://ludlowartsociety.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/duchamp-commemorated-at-las-summer.html)
To see “Fountain” commemorated in style, go to the LAS Summer Exhibition, on 23-31Aug17 at St Laurence’s Church, Ludlow (link: http://ludlowartsociety.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/duchamp-commemorated-at-las-summer.html)
"Tu m'", Marcel Duchamp, 1918
Duchamp was also a highly explorative pioneer of the deliberate introduction of randomness in place of the conscious decision of the artist (a concept which had been explored very deliberately and thoroughly by Zurich Dada artists that Duchamp encountered), such as through dust gathering on an artwork over a period of many years, and fixed with varnish to become part of the image:
Duchamp's "La mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même (Le Grand Verre)" (1915-23).
Translation: "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even", most often called "The Large Glass”.
This work took several years, seen here in the phase of gathering dust in an attic, and the finished work in which most of that incidental dust has been removed, while some has been retained within the figures in the image.
Interlude:
a Treasure hunt… Do you know someone who is soon to start a
Masters degree on First World War art, including a substantial focus
on the Dada movement? If you do, the knowledge is your prize (to keep to yourself).
"Speeding Automobile" by Giacomo Balla (1912)
Perhaps with Duchamp this is most clearly explained: in 1961 he wrote "Apropos of 'Readymades'", explaining that “in 1913 I had the happy idea to fasten a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool and watch it turn….”
"Bicycle Wheel", Duchamp (1913)
Eventually
Duchamp gave up art and dedicated himself to the game of chess.
Duchamp, 1958
By approximate parallel, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty gave up music 23 years ago on the 23rd of August. They were the music band “KLF” and “The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu”, and the “The Timelords”, and were similarly experimental and unusual.Among their contributions to the art world was an alternative Turner Prize in 1993, offered to “the worst” of the Turner prize finalists. Their prize offer was £40,000 pounds – double the actual Turner prize’s £20,000 for the winner. Drummond and Cauty, operating then under the name “The K Foundation”, announced their winner before the winner of the Turner prize was announced. Both competitions picked Rachel Whiteread.
"House", Rachel Whiteread (1993)
On the 23rd of August 2017 they reconvene to discuss and seek advice and thoughts about the million pounds, and some of their other activities. They are starting strong: the day before it starts an ice cream van plunges down a ravine on the M62 (link: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/ice-cream-van-plunges-down-13506889), with no trace of driver. They used to drive an ice cream van, and Drummond has a love of the M62. Their declaration of silence 23 years ago was sealed by painting that declaration on a car and pushing it over a cliff.
Duchamp created the “ready-made” whereby an object is art because the artist declares it to be so: you can use objects made by others in creating “art”, and indeed everyone does because nobody makes the canvas or the paints, or the raw earthly pigments from which they come: all is built on something pre-existing. ‘KLF’ stands for Kopyright Liberation Front. It is the removal of the concept of copyright: everyone has the right to anything. The KLF sampled and copied other people’s music openly and wrote about it clearly, within the framework of expressions of human freedom and collective endeavour within the realms of physicality and metaphor. ‘The K Foundation’ is similarly an assertion about the inappropriateness of copyright, akin to Duchamp’s “ready-mades” expressing that pre-existing human creations such as paint go into paintings, therefore any act of art includes appropriation. All these expressions of the incompleteness of concepts of ownership were made openly, and adhered to by the artists involved.
And Tom is displaying a copy of Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ (which was a ceramic construction made by someone else) at the LAS Summer Exhibition (link: http://ludlowartsociety.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/duchamp-commemorated-at-las-summer.html)
These are exciting times.
It’s all coming back.
It’s all ours.
Kopyright M.SMaRT