Marcel Duchamp: Ready to Make Art

Marcel Duchamp had been born into an art -loving family who certainly familiarized him with all possible forms of expression of art in the early youth.

He started painting and drawing at the age of 15, in the next 10 years he has learned a wide variety of representation techniques, from art pressure to caricature, his paintings have hiked from impressionism to cubism, he has traveled and studied old masters like Lucas Cranach .

At the age of 25, Duchamp was exposed to the full force of modern inventions at the Paris Luftfahrschau in 1912, and this force changed the artist and his work immediately: Duchamp gave up painting (for a time) completely and instead created something that approached the perfect form that was able to produce the modern industry of its time.

His first ready-made (only later referred to later, as a work of art from found everyday objects, on which the artist hardly or no processing does, he only finds and presented his work of art) was already the "Roue de Bicyclette" , the bike bike on the white coated stool. Duchamp liked this work that was not yet very sufficient for industrial manufacturing, it was "an object of personal construction" , but in 1960 he expressed restrictive in an interview:

"The Bicycle Wheel is My First ReadyMade, so that at first it was that it would call a readymade. It still had a nasty to do with the idea. Rather it had more to do with the idea of ​​chance. A Sort of Created Atmosphere in A Studio, to Apartment Where You Live.

To set the Wheel Turning was very sooting, very comforting, a sort of opening of avenues on other Things Than Material Life of Every Day. I Liked the Idea of ​​Having a Bicycle Wheel in My Studio. I enjoyed looking at it, just as i enjoyed looking at the flames dancing in a fireplace. It was like having a fireplace in my studio, The Movement of the Wheel Reminded Me of the Movement of Flames ”

(The bicycle bike was my first ready-made, so much the first that it was not called ready-made at all. It doesn't have much to do with the idea of ​​the ready-mades. It has more to do with the idea of ​​a chance.

It just let things run like they ran and it created atmosphere in a studio, in an apartment in which you live. Perhaps to help the ideas get upside down. Turning the wheel was very calming, very beneficial, an opening to other thoughts than that of everyday life.

I liked the idea of ​​having a bicycle bike in my studio. I enjoyed looking at how you enjoy seeing the flames in the fireplace. It was as if I had a fireplace in the studio, the movement of the wheel reminded me of the movements of flames.)

Freely translated quote from web.archive.org/ .

Marcel Duchamps Bicycle Rad (Roue de Bicyclette, Bicycle Wheel) is now in the Museum of Modern Art New York City . The work of art is part of the Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection, in its original size of 129.5 × 63.5 × 41.9 cm, but as a replica made in 1951, because the original is lost, see www.moma.org/collection/works/81631 .

The friends who had accompanied Duchamp on the Airfahrschau were also shaken up to the foundations of their work:

Constantin Brâncuşis also approached the form of industrial form, such as "Mademoiselle Pogany I" from white marble, xroads.virginia.edu/ , or more "le nouveau-né i" , www.onesttousdousdistes.tv/ .

Fernand Léger first dealt with the theory that he wanted to find out how art could be enabled to achieve the beauty of the machines. Before he found this out, he got to know the machines from a less beautiful side in the First World War, almost changed, but started his "Période Mécanique" (Mechanical period) in 1917, from 1924 z. B the legendary surrealistic-dadaistic film "Le Ballet Mécanique" (the mechanical ballet) emerged.

Then there was almost the Second World War again, this time Léger spent war time in the United States, and after the war he only had something to a limited extent with machines, his art looked more like this afterwards: "La Grande Fleur Qui Marche" , 1952:

Back to Duchamp: If reorientation, then right, he thought well and, after his departure from "retinal painting", went to use literary sources for his art. He now thought it was better to be influenced by literature than by other painters.

Raymond Roussel's play "Interpretation from Africa" have inflamed the basic ideas for the glass "The bride bare naked from her bachelor naked, even" Jean-Pierre Brissen (as Roussel's work by Duchamp described as a "fantasy") is said to have exerted further significant influence.

After the break with the powerful of the Puteaux Group, Duchamp may have had a little quiet atmosphere and good literature at all, in the spring of 1913 he definitely took a course in library sciences and, after a successful examination, took a job as a library assistant at the Sainte Geneviève Paris library.

The Armory Show - the fame comes with a lot of roar

Duchamp had nothing against fame, but was also not desperately looking for him, good starting base, so that the fame imposes itself:

While Duchamp enjoyed the calm of the time -honored Paris library - here the reader - an exhibition in the USA should change its life:

The American artists Arthur B. Davies and Walt Kuhn had visited Paris at the end of 1912 to in Ateliers, galleries and private collections according to modern art for the Armory Show in New York (International Exhibition of Modern Art, February 17 to March 15, 1913, an exhibition with such great influence on the development of American art that is often given in 1913 as the beginning of modernity in America) seek.

The American painter Walter Pach , who had lived in Paris since 1907, arranged contacts, Davies and Kuhn selected several works by the Ducamp brothers for the exhibition, including four pictures by Marcel.

He might have long forgotten that when "Nude Descending A Staircase (No. 2)" in New York was shown at the Armory Show in 1913 - and so triggered violent discussions that the artist rose in one fell swoop to the famous personality. All four works exhibited by Duchamp were sold, but not necessarily at refreshing prices, the "act, a staircase down ," brought $ 342.

But at least Duchamp from the calm reading room of the library was found again for art, the bicycle tire described above followed other ready-mades such as "bottle dryer" (1914, www.cloud-cuckoo.net/ ) and "Fontanen" (1917, de.wikipedia.org/wiki/fountain_%28duchamp%29#/Media/file:file:filen-duchamp.jpg), he moved to New York in 1915 and was discovered there by the media, the interviewers are said to have been surprised how kindly the "bustle specter of the Armory Show" was in real life.

In New York, Duchamp met some of the friends, Francis Picabia and Jean Crotti (and Albert Gleizes ), these artists had already emigrated to America through the First World War.

In 1916 Duchamp founded the " Society of Independent Artists" , in 1917 he published an early dada publication (the blind man) , in 1918 he painted his last oil picture ( tu m '" , generally as "you go to me" ) In summer to Buenos Aires, where he played chess intensely until June 1919, drew chess players and worked on the "big glass" .

But that was only done in 1923, see above with "Old Perfection and New Perfection and Artistic Shock" , 1919 Back in Paris, Duchamp initially worked on the Ready-Made Lhooq , a alienation of the Mona Lisa :

Other ready-Mades followed, partly under the pseudonym Rose Sélavy (later Rrose Sélavy = "Eros, c'est la vie", "Eros, that's life"), e.g. B. the ready-made "Why not snow, rose sélavy?" (Why not sneeze, rose sélavy?), 152 marble cubes in a bird cage.

In 1920 Duchamp founded the artist organization anonyms Inc." , which was supposed to organize 84 exhibitions from 1920 to 1939 (the most important thing was the "International Exhibition of Modern Art" from 1926 in the Brooklyn Museum of Art ).

Half a century of fantasy art for the world

In 1923 Duchamp entered into a relationship with Mary Reynolds, which despite an intermediate marriage (June to November 1927, Lydie Sarazin-Levassor, rumored by financial reasons) until Reynold's death in 1950.

After a few more love (1923 to 1927) and more of the chess (1928 to 1933, participation in five chess Olympiads, theoretical publications on chess), Duchamp 1936 exhibited in the exhibition "Phantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism" , Museum of Modern Art New York, designed decorating for André Breton's Surrealist Gallery "Gradiva" In Paris, in 1938 with Breton, Paul éluard and Wolfgang Paalen the "Exposition International du Surréisme" in the Beaux-Art Paris gallery , with 1,200 carbon bags hanging on the ceiling as a decoration of the main room.

Duchamp advised Peggy Guggenheim at the opening of her gallery in London, January 1938 with a Jean-Cocteau exhibition, experienced the first war time in Paris and emigrated to New York in 1942, where he with André Breton the exhibition "First Papers of Surrealism" (October 14 to November 7, 1942, including Max Ernst, Alexander Calder and David Hare) organized.

Also in 1942 he founded the surrealistic magazine VVV , in 1945 he designed the integration for a special number of the magazine View and for an exhibition catalog Man-Ray, in 1946 he became a member of the jury of the "Bel Ami Kunstwett competition" in 1952, Duchamp was included in the "Collège de 'Pataphysique" , which founded in Paris shortly before was (in honor of the French writer Alfred Jarry).

In 1946 Duchamp began with a room object that he only ended in 1966, his last work, conceived in twenty years: "Etant Donnés: 1 ° La Chute d'Eau / 2 ° Le Gaz d'éclairage" , wikimedia.org/ , a kind of diorama from many different materials and with just as many different artistic statements, touching and fascinating.

In 1954 Duchamp married again, the ex-wife of Henri Matisse son Pierre (Alexina "Teeny" Duchamp), in 1955 he accepted American citizenship, in 1963 the first Duchamp-Retrospective Pasadena Art Museum .

In 1964 Duchamp took part in Documenta III in Kassel (postally on Documenta 5 1972 and Documenta 6 1977), in 1965 he exhibited in the Kestner Society in Hanover, in 1967 he helped the exhibition "Les Duchamps: Jacques Villon, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Marcel Duchamp, Suzanne Duchamp" IM IM Organizing Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen, on October 2, 1968, Duchamp died surprisingly after a happy evening with wife and friends at night, his self-designed grave inscription is: "D'Ailleurs C'est Toujours Les Autres Qui Meurent" (otherwise it is always the others who die).

Free thinking and imagination, humor and irony ...

Marcel Duchamp impressionism and dadaism and surrealism and concept art with, as a painter , sculptor , writer , filmmaker and a lot more, he dealt with art thoroughly.

He challenged his viewers and frightened, amused and mocked, made them think and actually seduced completely new perspectives - he never only did one, he never left the art viewer "alone".

Duchamp has graduated from traditional painting, it only influences the retina, is "olfactory masturbation" (probably without further execution, how he came up with odor fetishism, but there will certainly be long and detailed publications).

Painting is out of date, energy waste, impractical, now it is the turn of photography and cinema that so many other paths offer to express life. With the ready-made, he freed the (also, but not only by him) art of the future of ties to material and handicrafts, that was actually the birth of conceptual art , in which the idea of ​​the work of art alone is crucial.

Marcel Duchamp has also biting irony and uninhibited humor to art, the work title "Lhooq" (Mona Lisa) can be read French "Elle a Chaud au Cul" (she has a hot ass), the mustache on the "most revered woman in the world" is supposed to be all about that Leonardo da Vinci is said to have worshiped young men as beautiful young women.

The pissoir called "Fountain" , submitted under the annual exhibition of the "Society of Independent Artists" and discussed and finally rejected by Duchamp itself, and finally rejected all previous art terms and also the art assessment company ironically.

All of these new ideas provided several great media events in art, the art revolutionary Duchamp ensured a fundamentally new discussion of the concept of art, the results of which can still be felt today:

... act on others and have a lot and long and long

Duchamp was involved in Dada films, e.g. B. to Hans Richter's "Dreams that Money Can Buy" (dreams for sale) from 1947, in which judges implemented designs by Duchamp, Max Ernst and Man Ray to music by John Cage. He participated in the "8 × 8: A Chess Sonata in 8 Movements" from 1956/57, a film about the chess game in which Jean Cocteau, Paul Bowles, Alexander Calder and Jacqueline Matisse were involved. He was involved in Richter's last work "Dadascope" from 1961, a film with poems and prose, together with Hans Arp, Raoul Hausmann and Richard Huelsenbeck .

In 1964 Joseph Beuys "The Silence of Marcel Duchamp is being overrated" ( www.rundschau-online.de/ in a live broadcast . The campaign criticized Duchamp's concept of art and fueled the debate about "Neo-Dada" and "Duchamp-Tradition" , Beuys' "Chair with Fat" is also seen as a "Ducamp's Ready-Made".

the British pop art artist Richard Hamilton began with the reconstruction of Marcel Duchamps Le Grand Verre, the "Typo/ Topography of Marcel Duchamp's Large Glass" is only completed in 2003: www.tete.org.uk/ .

Andy Warhol made a film about him, "Screen Test for Marcel Duchamp" (canvas test for Marcel Duchamp), in 1968 Mence Cunningham with his dance company the piece of Walkaround Time with a stage design designed by Jasper Johns according to motifs of the large glass.

The Welsh object artist Bethan Huws refers to Marcel Duchamp; And actions such as the covering of the Reichstag by Christo & Jeanne-Claude go back to Duchamp Ideas, in which something is really visible every day by covering up.

Many other artists were inspired by ideas Duchamps, by Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg to Saâdane Afif , born in 1970, who has currently gathered around 300 pictures of Marcel Duchamp's urinal "Fountain Archive" "co -founder of modern art" .

There is a Ducamp research center (founded in 2009 in the State Museum of Schwerin) and a Duchamp research grant and a Prix Marcel Duchamp has been awarded Association Pour La diffusion Internationale Française since 2000

In 2004, 500 art experts Duchamps Ready-Made "Fountain" the "Most Influential Modern Art Work of All Time" (most influential modern art of all time).

Lina cream

Passionate author with lively art interest

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