What is Art? Marcel Duchamp: Great Art Explained
Summary
TLDRThe script explores the revolutionary impact of Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain' on art, challenging traditional notions of beauty and artistry. It delves into Duchamp's background, his move towards conceptual art, and the evolution of the 'readymade' concept. The narrative also touches on the broader implications for the definition of art, Duchamp's playful approach to challenging the art world, and his enduring influence on contemporary artists.
Takeaways
- 🖼️ Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain', a mass-produced urinal, is considered one of the most revolutionary and contentious works in art history, challenging traditional notions of art.
- 🎨 Duchamp's work reflects a shift from traditional artistic styles to more conceptual and idea-driven approaches, influencing the development of modern art.
- 🤔 Duchamp's 'readymades', like 'Bicycle Wheel' and 'Bottle Rack', questioned the definition of art and the role of the artist, emphasizing the importance of ideas over physical creation.
- 🧩 Duchamp's exploration of chance and the element of randomness in art was influenced by scientific and mathematical theories, particularly those of Henri Poincaré.
- 🔍 The concept of 'readymades' defied the idea that art must be beautiful, instead focusing on the functional and everyday, removing the object's practical function to imbue it with new meaning.
- 🌐 Duchamp's influence extended beyond his own work, affecting the broader art world's understanding and definition of what constitutes art.
- 🏆 Despite the controversy and debate, Duchamp's 'Fountain' was never exhibited publicly during the 1917 exhibition due to the committee's decision, highlighting the tension between traditional and avant-garde art.
- 🔮 Duchamp's later work, including replicas of his 'readymades', continued to challenge the art world's notions of originality, authorship, and the value of art.
- 👥 The debate over the authorship of 'Fountain', with speculation about a possible female creator, adds another layer to the discussion of Duchamp's work and its impact on art history.
- ♟️ Duchamp's interest in chess paralleled his artistic pursuits, suggesting a connection between the strategic, conceptual nature of the game and the creation of art.
Q & A
What was Marcel Duchamp's groundbreaking artwork in 1917?
-In 1917, Marcel Duchamp's groundbreaking artwork was 'Fountain,' a mass-produced porcelain urinal that he laid on its side, signed, and submitted to an exhibition, challenging traditional notions of art.
How did Duchamp's 'Fountain' influence the perception of art?
-'Fountain' cast a long shadow over the 20th and 21st centuries by redefining what could be considered art, sparking debates on the role of ideas over traditional artistic techniques, and influencing the conceptual art movement.
What was Duchamp's stance on being part of an artistic group?
-Duchamp disliked being part of a group and believed in making a 'personal' contribution to art, which could only be achieved by thinking independently and not following the general rules of the group.
How did Duchamp's encounter with airplane propellers at the Paris Aviation salon in 1912 influence his artistic direction?
-Duchamp's encounter with airplane propellers led him to question the traditional methods of art creation, as he declared 'Painting is washed up' and started exploring the possibility of inventing an entirely new way of being an artist.
What was Duchamp's approach to art after studying the works of Henri Poincaré?
-After studying Henri Poincaré's works, Duchamp began experimenting with combining art and scientific concepts, adopting a more cerebral approach and engaging with ideas of probability and chance in his art.
What is the significance of Duchamp's 'readymade' concept in art history?
-The 'readymade' concept, where Duchamp used manufactured found objects as art, defied the notion that art must be beautiful and was a significant contribution to the artistic debate, challenging the definition and creation of art.
Why did Duchamp abandon art in 1913 and what did he do instead?
-In 1913, Duchamp abandoned art to work as a librarian, a period during which he engaged in serious reading, studying mathematics and physics, which later influenced his approach to art.
How did Duchamp's 'Bicycle Wheel' challenge the traditional views on art?
-Duchamp's 'Bicycle Wheel' challenged traditional views on art by presenting a functional everyday item without any artistic modification, emphasizing the concept of chance and the idea that art could be anything the artist intended it to be.
What was the role of humor and irony in Duchamp's approach to art?
-Humor and irony played a significant role in Duchamp's approach to art, as he used them to challenge the art world's conventions and provoke thought, often employing them in his works and public persona.
Why did Duchamp submit 'Fountain' under the pseudonym Richard Mutt?
-Duchamp submitted 'Fountain' under the pseudonym Richard Mutt to provoke and test the American Society of Independent Artists, who claimed to champion new and progressive art without the use of committees or juries.
How did Duchamp's involvement with chess reflect his artistic philosophy?
-Duchamp's involvement with chess reflected his artistic philosophy by viewing the game as a form of artistic creation, appreciating its conceptual nature, and finding common points between the strategic thinking in chess and artistic design.
Outlines
🎨 Duchamp's Revolutionary 'Fountain'
Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain,' a mass-produced urinal turned on its side and signed, is considered one of the most revolutionary works in art history. Created in 1917, it sparked debate on the definition of art, with some viewing Duchamp as a conceptual pioneer and others as a charlatan. Born in 1887, Duchamp came from a cultured family where four of his siblings also became artists. His early work showed post-Impressionist influences, and he moved to Paris during the emergence of Fauvism and Cubism. Duchamp's work began to reflect these styles, but his relationship with Cubism was complex. After his painting was rejected by the Cubists for being 'too futurist,' he distanced himself from artistic groups, valuing individual thought over collective norms.
🛠️ The Birth of the Readymade
Duchamp's encounter with airplane propellers at the Paris Aviation salon led him to question the future of painting and consider new artistic approaches. He abandoned art in 1913 to work as a librarian, where he studied mathematics and physics, particularly the works of Henri Poincaré. Duchamp's interest in probability and chance influenced his creation of the 'readymade,' art made from found objects. His first readymade, 'Bicycle Wheel,' was created not as art but as an exploration of motion. Duchamp's readymades challenged the notion of art as beautiful, instead emphasizing ideas and concepts. Despite their initial obscurity, Duchamp's readymades later influenced the Dada movement and expanded the definition of art.
🔍 The Evolution of Art's Definition
The concept of art has evolved significantly, from the 12th-century view of skill and practice to the Renaissance's focus on individual intellectual pursuit. Charles Batteux in the 18th century defined art as beautiful things that please and require genius. By the 19th century, with the advent of photography, art moved towards abstraction, and the definition of art began to shift beyond beauty. Duchamp's readymades, such as the 'Bicycle Wheel,' were part of this shift, challenging traditional views. The 20th century saw further evolution, with George Dickie proposing that art institutions or self-proclaimed artists could define art. Duchamp's work contributed to this debate, emphasizing selection, function removal, and presentation as creative acts.
🗽 Duchamp's Provocative 'Fountain'
In 1917, Duchamp submitted 'Fountain' under the pseudonym Richard Mutt to the American Society of Independent Artists exhibition, intending to provoke and test the group's commitment to new and progressive art. The committee, bound by their own rules, had to accept it but kept it hidden, reflecting the art world's contradictions. Although the original 'Fountain' was discarded, its impact was profound, sparking discussions and influencing future art. Replicas of Duchamp's readymades, produced later, challenged ideas of authorship and originality, preserving certain qualities of the originals while becoming stand-ins themselves.
👥 The Mystery of Duchamp's 'Female Friend'
Duchamp's letter to his sister in 1917 hinted at a 'female friend' involved in the submission of 'Fountain,' sparking theories about the work's authorship. While some suggest Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, a Dadaist artist, there is no concrete evidence linking her to the piece. More likely candidates are Louise Norton and Beatrice Wood, both part of the New York avant-garde scene and close to Duchamp. Norton is believed to have submitted the piece on Duchamp's behalf, while Wood defended 'Fountain' in her writing. Duchamp maintained responsibility for the work until his death, and the identity of the 'female friend' remains a mystery, adding to the intrigue of Duchamp's legacy.
♟️ Duchamp's Enduring Legacy
Duchamp's influence extended beyond his readymades and 'Fountain.' He connected chess and art, seeing both as forms of design and strategy. Despite announcing his 'retirement' from art for chess, Duchamp continued creating, including a suitcase museum and films. His 1963 retrospective at the Pasadena Art Museum significantly impacted future artists. After his death, it was revealed he had been secretly working on 'Étant Donnés,' an installation accessible only through a peephole. Duchamp believed that both the artist and the viewer contribute to a work's creation, challenging us to consider what art truly is.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Conceptualism
💡Readymades
💡Fountain
💡Cubism
💡Chance
💡Dada
💡Authorship
💡Replicas
💡Rrose Selavy
💡Étant Donnés
Highlights
Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain', a mass-produced urinal, challenged traditional artistic norms and sparked debates about what constitutes art.
Duchamp's work is seen as revolutionary, influencing both the 20th and 21st-century art, despite being contentious.
Duchamp is credited as the father of conceptualism, an art form focused on ideas rather than traditional aesthetics.
His approach to art was individualistic, rejecting groupthink and traditional artistic methods.
Duchamp's early works showed influences from post-Impressionism and later shifted towards Cubism.
The rejection of his painting by the Cubists led Duchamp to distance himself from artistic groups and their rules.
Duchamp's encounter with airplane propellers at the Paris Aviation salon inspired a new approach to art, beyond traditional painting.
His 'readymade' concept, starting with 'Bicycle Wheel', introduced found objects as art, defying the notion of art as beautiful.
Duchamp's 'readymades' were initially private recreations, not intended as public art, challenging the art world's seriousness.
The 'Fountain' was Duchamp's public provocation, submitted under a pseudonym to an exhibition with no jury.
The original 'Fountain' was hidden from public view and eventually discarded, but its conceptual impact remained.
Duchamp's work on 'Fountain' and other readymades was a significant contribution to the discussion on the definition of art.
The concept of 'chance' in art, influenced by mathematician Henri Poincaré, played a role in Duchamp's approach to readymades.
Duchamp's legacy includes challenging the idea of authorship, originality, and the role of the artist through his replicas of readymades.
Conspiracy theories suggest that 'Fountain' may have been created by a woman, though evidence directly links it to Duchamp.
Duchamp's later life saw him exploring chess as an art form, finding parallels between the strategy of chess and artistic creation.
His final work, 'Étant Donnés', was a surprise to the art world, continuing Duchamp's tradition of challenging conventional art forms.
Duchamp believed that both the artist and the viewer are necessary to complete a work of art, involving the audience in the creative process.
Transcripts
In 1917 Marcel Duchamp bought a mass-produced porcelain urinal from a plumbing suppliers, laid
it on its side, signed it, and then put it in an exhibition, and called it art. "The Fountain" as it
was named, has cast a long Shadow not only over the 20th century, but also the 21st century. Over 100
years after it was created, it is still considered one of the most revolutionary Works in art history.
It is also one of the most contentious. For some, Duchamp is the father of conceptualism, the
so-called art of ideas, for other, he is a charlatan responsible for the demise of traditional Artistry.
But maybe we should look on this work differently? We are not talking about brush-strokes or colours,
or textures, we are talking about ideas. Works like this are important. They stimulate discussion and
pose difficult questions. This is not a film about taste or style, and it is not a film about what
is right or wrong. It is a film that like Duchamp's urinal, asked the question: "What is art?"
Born in Normandy in 1887, Duchamp had a perfectly normal middle-class upbringing. His grandfather
was a painter and they had a fairly cultural life. His father was a notary, an important legal figure
in France, and Marcel was one of six children, of whom four became artists. Rather to their
father's disappointment. The young Duchamp was intelligent but not very academic. He knew from
an early age he wanted to be an artist. One of his earliest Works was painted when he
was only 15 years old, and shows his debt to the post Impressionists. In 1902 at the
age of 16, he moved to Paris to live with his artist brother. Arriving in the city just when
the Great Revolutions in modern painting were emerging. Fauvism around 1905, and then a couple of
years later cubism. His two older brothers and his sister, were very much involved with the
Cubist movement, and around this time Duchamp's own work began to reflect a shift towards that
style. In 1911 he produced this painting, using Cubist principles, but his breakthrough was
this painting, which is more ambivalent in its relationship with cubism. He still used
The limited pallet and the fragmentation of that movement, but his figure is in a state
of Perpetual Motion, something the Italian futurists were exploring. Just before the
painting's first presentation at the 1912 Salon des Indépendants in Paris, it was rejected
by the Cubist as being "too futurist", and he was told the title of the work was too
literal. This was a real turning point for Duchamp, and after this he had very little
interest in groups, or being told what to do. Duchamp: "No I never enjoyed being part of a group. I've
always wanted to make something of "personal" contribution to it, which is only can only be
done if you think by yourself and not follow the general rules of the of the group."
In 1912, Duchamp, Constantin Brancusi and Fernand Léger attended the Paris Aviation salon.
All three were astounded at the sheer beauty of the huge airplane propellers on display. "Painting
is washed up", Duchamp said to his companions after a moment of silence, "Who will ever do anything
better than that propeller? can you?". In that moment, Duchamp was presented with the possibility of
changing the rules of Art, and inventing from scratch an entirely new way of being an artist.
In 1913, he abandoned art altogether and got a job as a librarian. Ironically, he was never much of a
reader, and it was during this period he carried out the only serious sustained reading he did in
his life. He studied mathematics and physics, read a lot of books written by the French mathematician
and theoretical physicist Henri Poincaré, and started experimenting with combining art and scientific
concepts, a more cerebral approach. This was an exhilarating time, when new discoveries had
shaken the foundations of science. Periodicals, books, performances, and lectures, revealed
groundbreaking scientific and mathematical theories in physics, psychology, biolog,y and
many other disciplines. Ideas and Concepts which were being discussed in artistic and intellectual
circles. Poicaré is best known today for laying the mathematical foundations of Chaos Theory,
but his writings on the fourth dimension, and his philosophical discussions of the breakdown
of principles would be a major influence on Duchamp's new art. The Notions of probability
and chance, played an important role in Poincarè's ideas as it would with Duchamp, and eventually
the Dada movement. The element of chance in art is not a new idea. Leonardo da Vinci advocated chance
as an inspiration and encouraged the viewers to search for meaning in chaos, and later in
the 18th century artists like Alexander Cozens, an English landscape painter, expanded on the
idea. It became Duchamp's method to move away from conscious thought, and his great contribution
to Artistic debate, the readymade, would be a direct development of his engagement with chance.
Duchamp's great work of chance, was his first readymade "Bicycle Wheel" in 1913.
At his Paris Studio, Duchamp mounted a bicycle wheel upside down onto a stool, spinning it
occasionally just to watch it in motion, as the spokes blurred. He had no intention of showing it
to anyone and didn't even think of it as a work of art. Duchamp: "For example in that um bicycle wheel, see
here, it was 1913, it was in Paris. The word didn't exist, the thought did not exist in my mind".
Duchamp used the term "readymade" later to describe works of art he made from manufactured found
objects. But in 1913, bicycle wheel wasn't created as a work of art and wasn't formly
shown in a gallery space until 1951, and even then it was a replica. Like all his readymades,
and there weren't that many, the wheel was chosen because it was a functional everyday item, with a
total absence of good or bad taste. The readymade defied the notion that art must be beautiful.
Well then after, that in 1914, I had the thing called "The Bottle Rack". It was a dryer for bottles,
made of iron, manufactured". He could have had no idea just how important these artifacts would be
in art history, and we wouldn't know for quite a while. We need to remember, how many people would
have seen these readymades? Probably less than a handful. So it wasn't the seismic event some
see it as, and it didn't cause people to 'rethink' art. In fact Duchamp didn't really think about it as
"art" himself until around 1916 - and by then it was too late. The readymades had all been destroyed!
It is important to note, that contrary to Modern conspiracy theories, that conceptual art was a
"money-making cynical invention", Duchamp didn't sell any of these, or make any money from the readymades,
most of which he gave away. In fact, he made next to nothing from art, until his Pasadena show in
1963. The Art Market was not the Behemoth it is today.
Duchamp: "I believe that art, is the only form of activity in which man as Man, shows himself to
be a true individual". One of the biggest effects of the readymade was on the discussion about the
definition of Art. In the 12th century, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, art was defined as
"skill at doing anything as a result of knowledge and practice". So for example, the monks who created
something as glorious as the Book of Kells, would have seen themselves as Craftsmen, not
artists. By the time of the Renaissance, artists evolved from Anonymous Craftsmen to individuals,
practicing an intellectual Pursuit. Paving the way for the modern idea of an artist. In 1740,
we get our first real definition of what art is from a writer on Aesthetics, Charles Batteux, who
wrote a book called "The Fine Arts reduced to a single principle", which was an attempt to find
unity among the different theories of beauty and taste, and create a single principle, a clear-cut
idea of what constitutes "Fine Art". Batteaux's views were widely accepted, not only in France, but throughout
Europe. He stated that "fine arts are fine or beautiful things, which please of themselves,
always in Imitation of Nature, and requiring genius". The main idea of Batteaux was that the
Arts were a cause of "pleasure", a simple idea that really took hold. Emmanuel Kent, in 1790 gave a
more complicated and Nuanced description, that fine art is "not how it is judged by a viewer but how
it is created". The idea revolves around two new Concepts: "The genius" and "aesthetic ideas". By the
19th century, photography was capable of producing nature perfectly, and there is a move in the Arts
towards abstraction, and away from the idea that "Art equals Beauty". Art Nouveau, Impressionism and Fauvism, once
seen as revolutionary ideas, were now acceptable to the mainstream, and there was a crisis of sorts
in what art meant. Modernism brought with it a revolution in thoughts and ideas, as well as
new challenges to the definition of art, with works like Duchamp's bicycle wheel being included in the
concept of what art was, and the definition was moving away from the narrow idea of beauty. The
idea of "what is art?" had to be expanded to accommodate these new works and ideas.
By 1974, the American philosopher George Dickie, was advocating the idea that art institutions such
as museums and galleries, or anyone who says they are an artist, have the power to dictate what is
art and what is not. There are three key points to consider when discussing Duchamp's Readymades.
First: Selecting an object IS a creative act. Second: When an object's practical function is removed, it
becomes something else. Third: The act of presenting the object, and giving it a title, introduces a new
thought, thereby giving it a new meaning. So it took 300 years, but the conventional question
of "what is art?" has shifted beyond seeing it as a skill or as a concept of Beauty. Beyond something
that lies in shape, shapes colour, and line. To ideas and Concepts created with intense and purpose.
While Duchamp was unintentionally inventing the readymade, his painting, which
the cubist's rejected in Paris, "Nude descending a staircase", was selected for the 1913 Armory
show in New York City, where Americans accustomed to more naturalistic art were
scandalised. It was compared to an "explosion in a shingle Factory" or a "pile of golf clubs".
And cartoonists satirised the piece. This footage is from that time. Let's take a moment, to look
at the clothes, the cars, the people. Duchamp is considered scandalous now, imagine what they
thought in 1913. By this time, Duchamp was already feeling increasingly isolated in
France, and saw the United States as a way to escape what he saw as the stifling art scene.
Then, the first world war broke out, and Duchamp, who was exempt from military service due to a heart
murmur, decided it was time to move to New York City. He arrived in June 1914, surprised to find
out that the Scandal had made him the most famous modern artist in America, and all his paintings at
the Armory show had sold out. A New York Gallery offered him $10,000 a year an absolute fortune
then, for his entire output of paintings. But he refused, saying he was finished with painting.
This was 2 years before the fountain. In early 1916, Duchamp started to rethink ideas around the
readymades he had left in Paris. He wrote to his sister to ask if she could send them to New York, but it
was too late. She had thrown them all out as junk when cleaning out his studio in Paris in 1915.
Humour is very much part of Duchamp's modus operandi, and I think that although
he wanted his ideas to be taken seriously. he also wanted "not being serious", to be taken seriously.
Then and now, the art World lacks any sense of humour or irony, but Duchamp had a
mischievous streak, and was willing to ask big and very serious questions, but with a healthy dose of
humour and skepticism. So far his Readymades had been a sort of "private Recreation", but the "Fountain" would
be a very public attack on the contradictions of the art World. Some people see Fountain as a
"Joke", and that's not a bad description. It started out, in a way, as one of the most subversive jokes
of the 20th century. The American Society of Independent Artists was founded in 1917 and
Duchamp was one of the directors. The independents saw themselves as championing everything new and
progressive in art, and to that effect, their first exhibition didn't have any committee or jury.
It was designed to break down the barriers artist faced, and as long as you paid $6
you could submit two Works, no questions asked. Duchamp disliked the group - as he disliked all
groups, and decided to provoke them. To test them even. It was in that frame of mind, that in April
1917, Duchamp made his way to the JL Mott Iron Works, a plumbing suppliers situated at 118 Fifth Ave.
The only way for Duchamp's "provocation" to work, was by submitting Fountain under a
false name: Richard Mutt. The name was derived from the manufacturer's name, but also inspired by the
comic strip "Mutt and Jeff" which Duchamp loved. and "Richard" is French slang for a rich showoff.
or a money bags. The committee decided, after much debate, that Richard Mutt's "Fountain", was not a work
of art, but they were tied by their own rules into accepting it. Fountain however was never
seen by the public at the exhibition, and was not mentioned in the catalogue. Instead, it remained for
the whole show hidden behind a curtain, an act of cowardice by the committee. A photo was taken by
Alfred Stieglitz, and that was the last anyone saw saw of the actual urinal. The object had
been thrown away. The thoughts and the ideas behind the object however, could not so easily
be disposed of, and in both the literature that followed, and the ideas that sprang forth from it,
Duchamp's Fountain had ignited the spark, and art would never be the same again.
Many of Duchamp's original readymades, like Fountain, were lost, dismantled,
or destroyed, and by the 1960s, only seven of Duchamp's 14 original readymades remained, or
survived only as photographs. Starting in 1964, Arturo Schwartz collaborated with Duchamp on
producing replicas of 14 of his most important readymades, in numbered and signed editions. Ironically,
Schwarz had to return to traditional sculptural techniques to recreate them, challenging the
very idea of the original readymade. Interviewer: "What would happen if in fact these manufactured Readymades, were
mass-produced, and we could all buy one?" Duchamp: "No no, you have to sign them.
They are signed. They are signed and numbered. An edition of eight each, like any sculpture, so it's
still in the realm of Art. In the form of technique, you just make eight, and you sign them and number them".
The replicas sent shock waves through the art World, by challenging traditional ideas of
"authorship", "identity", and the artist role, while paradoxically preserving certain qualities of the
original Works, ultimately becoming stand-ins for the readymades. Ever the provocateur, Duchamp saw it as
an opportunity to create controversy and challenge the artistic establishment. He embraced replication
as a way of rethinking terms, such as creativity, originality, and value. And to blur conventional categories.
Everyone loves a conspiracy, especially if it debunks Modern Art. And by challenging
Duchamp's authorship of the fountain, you are also challenging the very Concepts. In 1982, a letter was
found, dated 11th of April 1917. In it, Duchamp wrote to his sister: "One of my female friends,
under a masculine pseudonym "Richard Mutt", sent in a porcelain urinal as a sculpture". This letter has led
to claims the fountain was actually created by an unnamed woman, not Duchamp. He didn't identify his
"female friend", but many candidates have been put forward as creators. Most notably the Dadaist, Elsa
von Freytag-Loringhoven. One of the most extraordinary characters in art history. A poet,
performance artist, and object maker. A truly extraordinary woman. However, Freytag-Loringhoven,
despite her talent for self-promotion, never claimed this work as her own. either at the time,
or in the years that followed, whether in private conversations, or in published writings. Furthermore,
none of the many individuals involved, ever mentioned her name in connection with the work,
either at the time or in their later interviews or memoirs. Duchamp himself, adopted a female Persona
in the early 1920s Rrose Selavy, and 3 weeks before the fountain scandal, he wore women's clothing to
an inaugural party for the magazine, "The blind man". So there is speculation that the female friend he
mentions to his sister was his female alter ego. There were however, women in the New York Avant-Garde
scene, who WERE involved in the 1917 Fountain incident, and are more likely candidates for
the mystery "female friend". Women who, like Freytag- -Loringhoven have also been forgotten about
in history. Louise Norton, and Beatrice Wood. Both crucial contributors to the story of the fountain.
As noted, it was critical that the work should not be submitted by Duchamp. I think the important
thing to point out here, is that in his letter he wrote "sent", and not "created". Beatrice Wood, a friend
of Duchamp, was an artist and writer who made an important contribution to the myth surrounding
this new Infamous, but unseen object. Wood wrote the first defence of fountain in her 1917
article, "The Richard Mutt case", where crucially she wrote: :Whether Mr Mutt, with his own hands made the
fountain or not, has no importance. He chose it. He took an ordinary article of life, placed it so
that its useful significance disappeared under the new title and point of view. Created a new
thought for that object". In her later memoirs, Wood reiterated that the fountain was in fact created
by Duchamp. Louis Norton was a Dada poet, a writer, and a close friend of Duchamp, and she too is important
in the story. She is almost certainly the "female friend", who sent in the fountain on his behalf.
We can't be 100% certain, but it is her address partially detectable on the paper entry ticket
in the Stieglitz photograph. The likeliest candidate for the "female friend". Duchamp claimed responsibility
for "Fountain" until the end of his life in 1968, and knowing what we know about the artist,
if he was not the creator, he would have taken great joy in revealing that.
In 1923, at the age of 36, Duchamp suddenly announced that he had "given up art for chess". From his early painting,
"Portrait of chess players" in 1911 to "Opposition and sister squares are reconciled" of 1932, to
"Reunion", the performance chess game he staged with John Cage in 1968, the game of chess was important
to Duchamp, who saw many connections between chess and art. Duchamp: "Everybody can play chess, but I took it
very seriously, and enjoyed it, because I found some common points between chess and painting.
Actually, when you play a game of chess, it is like designing something or constructing a mechanism of some kind".
He had played chess since he was a child, and as an adult he played for France in championships,
wrote a chess book, translated another, covered chess for "Le Soir" newspaper, and became an official of
the French Chess Federation. "The chess pieces are the block alphabet which shapes thoughts", he once
said, "And these thoughts, although making a visual design on the chessboard, express their beauty
abstractly, like a poem". Chess and Duchamp make sense: He was disciplined and self-absorbed, happy
to work alone for long hours and days, which made studying the games of the great Masters possible.
He said that "while all artists were not chess players, all chess players were artists", and he
loved the conceptual nature of the game, its pointlessness, and the nearly infinite
possible combinations of moves and tactics. He was described by a chess master as someone who would
always take risks in order to play a beautiful game, rather than be cautious and brutal to win.
The kind of risks he had taken as an artist. A great conceptual artist quitting the art
world to play chess, would be a lovely way to end this film. But sadly, it is yet another strategic
game that Duchamp was playing. He wanted to be known as the artist whose final artwork was to
quit art to play chess, but in fact he quietly created artistic experiments for the rest of
his life. He worked on films, in which he also made appearances, and he began a huge project creating
miniature versions of all of his own works that he put into a suitcase as a kind of traveling museum.
At the age of 76, Duchamp agreed to hold his first ever career retrospective at the Pasadena
art museum in 1963, then an obscure museum, in a provincial Outpost.
The impact of that show, had a huge effect on a generation of artists who would go on
to revolutionise the contemporary Art world. When he died, 5 years
later, it was discovered that he had been working for 20 years in total secrecy on
his last major work "Étant Donnés", an installation visible only through a peephole in a wooden
door. It was a total surprise to the art world. But as with all his works, it was a
collaboration. Not between himself and another artist, or curator, or writer, but between him and us.
Duchamp: "The creative act is not performed by the artist alone. The Spectator brings the work into
contact with the external World, by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualification. And thus,
adds his contribution to the creative act". Both the artist and the viewer are necessary to complete a
work of art. We bring our own external thoughts and ideas into Duchamp's world, and by doing so,
we are challenged to ask the question: "What is art?" - Maybe, the answer is in the question?
Interviewer: "Why did you make it so difficult?" Duchamp: "Well, because I didn't want to make it easy".
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