A new futurist movement was beginning to gain momentum with the advent of these scientific discoveries and we begin to see Duchamp's own interpretations of futurist notions in Dr Dumouchel 1910, in which we can see radioactive haloes around an outstretched hand (Conrad 1998, pg 71). His cubist piece "Nude Descending a Staircase" also incorporated elements of the new scientific development, in particular the notion of movement. He had hoped to exhibit this picture at the Salon des Independents in March 1912 but popular commentary at the time was that the painting was ugly and should be removed from the exhibition. Duchamp had undertaken a bold move to portray the "nude" in a new light, incorporating mobility and fluidity of movement, a transformation not normally associated with the demure, un-confronting "nude". The painting however did go on to be shown at the Salon de la Section d'Or exhibition in Paris of October that year and was later shown at the Armory Show in New York in 1913.
"When Duchamp was asked why he stopped painting, he explained that it was only because he was no longer interested in "rubbing elbows with artists," but because of a specific incident: the withdrawal of his Nude, an event, he said, that "gave me a turn." He found the actions of his cubist colleagues "naively foolish..." and he was basically reacting "against such behaviour coming from artists whom I had believed to be free" (Cabanne 1967, pg 17).
The unacceptance of his work left Duchamp feeling betrayed by the new avant-garde movement, which was supposed to be forward thinking and open to new rhetoric and it is from this point that we see Duchamp choosing to work more on his own whilst openly taunting his fellow contemporaries and their seemingly unconfrontational styles. He began in earnest to define his own boundaries and in doing so, flaunt his total disregard for established artists and artistic convention.
One of his next major pieces was the "Large Glass" a loosely based representation of what a new universe would look like, the seemingly unavailability of the female, the mechanical motion of life whilst acknowledging the importance of air. Duchamp is reported as saying 'everyone prattled in those years about the fourth dimension, though no one had the faintest idea of what it was or where it was' (Conrad 1998, pg 80). Duchamp had begun to experiment with the "conceptual" and "anti-retinal", both of which were picked up from time to time within the Dada and Surrealist movements. Duchamp worked with both groups when it pleased him to do so whilst maintaining his absolute freedom to undertake whatever he wished. Andre Breton admired his 'policy of absolute negation, from which flowed his originality' (Ades, Cox, Hopkins 1999, pg 122).
One of his first major ready-made pieces was "The Fountain". A brave attempt to redefine social and artistic boundaries by installing a urinal under the pseudonym of R Mutt at the American Society of Independent Artists exhibition in New York, April 1917. The piece was subsequently removed from the exhibition by the board of directors, of which Duchamp himself was also a director. In response to the removal of the piece he wrote the following statement.
The Richard Mutt Case, Beatrice Wood, H.P. Roché and/or Marcel Duchamp
[The Blind Man 2 (May 1917)].
They say any artist paying six dollars may exhibit.
Mr. Richard Mutt sent in a fountain, Without discussion this article disappeared and was never exhibited.
What were the grounds for refusing Mr. Mutt's fountain:-
1. Some contend it was immoral, vulgar.
2. Others, it was plagiarism, a plain piece of plumbing.
Now Mr. Mutt's fountain is not immoral, that is absurd, no more than a bath tub is immoral. It is a fixture that you see every day in plumbers' show windows.
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 new title and point of view-created a new thought for that object.
As for plumbing, that is absurd. The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges.
Other infamous pieces include the bicycle wheel mounted on a stool, "Bicycle Wheel" which he later described to a friend, 'the pleasure of watching Bicycle Wheel turning, like "looking at flames dancing in a fireplace"' (Ades, Cox, Hopkins 1999, pg 146). He then went on to produce "In Advance of the Broken Arm" a snow shovel provided with the inscription "from Marcel Duchamp" and the "Bottle Dryer", "Paysage fautif" (1946) was a landscape of human semen on black cloth. Duchamp is quoted as saying '…it is necessary to obtain things with such indifference that they do not provoke any aesthetic emotional reaction. The choice of the ready-mades is based on visual indifference, at the same time as a total absence of good or bad taste.' (Ramirez 1993, pg 27). Duchamp believed that the artist was only a "mediumistic being," that the work of art was only "completed" by a spectator ("The Creative Act," Artnews, vol. 56, no. 4 [June 1957], pg 28-29).
He preferred his art to be unpretentious and in fact, chose those pieces that he personally had a strong indifference to. His ready-mades consisted of pieces of everyday objects that could be referenced as works of art by the use of an inscription or by installation.
In a radio interview with the BBC in 1959, Duchamp said "We have tried, everybody has tried and in every century there is a new definition of art. Meaning that there is no essential, no one essential, that is good for all centuries. So if we accept the idea of trying not to define art, which is a very legitimate conception, then the ready-made can be seen as a sort of irony, because it says here it is, a thing that I call art…"
Duchamp's final piece of work was the Etant donnes, which he purposely had exhibited 9 months after his death, this is his last masterpiece and one that he chose not to discuss or share with the world until after his demise. He spent a good part of the latter part of his life working on the Etant donnes, the female figure of which is based on Maria Martins, a lady to whom he had had an affair with years earlier. In the piece, the spectator is invited to view the installation, but is unable to see the figure clearly and is placed in a voyeuristic position of "spying" through a peep hole, unable to reach out or touch the figure.
Conclusion
A retrospective view of Duchamp would be a man that belonged only to himself. Throughout his lifetime he chose to live quite simply and owned few possessions. Only in this way could he feel that he was free from the constraints and boundaries placed on other people by society. He was an intellectual, that chose to be reclusive and whilst he aligned himself with various movements over the years, he did not directly associate or stay with any one movement, preferring to move in and out of these movements as it pleased him. He had a rather arrogant and cynical view of the art world, which dominated his work.
His ready-mades shocked the public and the art world and through them he mockingly asks the question "is it art?". Duchamp endeavoured to find the point of indifference in his pieces and the minute he started to like them, he would immediately reject them. He poses the question "If art didn't exist, what would be art?". Duchamp is also quoted as saying the artist is only a "mediumistic being," that the work of art was only "completed" by a spectator ("The Creative Act," Artnews, vol. 56, no. 4 [June 1957], pg 28-29).
The American post-war period, under the artistic influences of Duchamp surrendered itself to a number of "theatrical" artistic forms - Fluxus, Arte Povera, Minimalism, Conceptualism, Performance and Land Art (Ades, Cox, Hopkins 1999, pg 208) and by the 1950s and 1960s Duchamp had started to gain personal recognition for his conceptual art as a new wave of artists and art historians began to emerge onto the art scene.
Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns were part of the new wave of artists emerging in the 1950s and 60s who were both inspired and enchanted by Duchamp's conceptual art. Rauschenberg said that 'Duchamp helped open up the fertile gap "between art and life"'. (Ades, Cox, Hopkins 1999, pg 208). During this re-emergence of interest in Duchamp's conceptual art, Duchamp gained notoriety for purposely striving to comment very little on his work, leaving the viewer to complete the hypothesis.
Duchamp's legacy to art and the art world is his absolute determination and perseverance to ultimately undermine the notion of the object and celebrate the subject. His work has provided a framework for the contemporary, where we no longer view the object but take ourselves further and ask "what of the subject?". To appreciate and understand that there is nothing new and that everything has been done before, our only true freedom lying in the interpretation of the
"subject" not the "object".
References
Ades D, Cox N, Hopkins D, 1999, "Marcel Duchamp" Published by Thames and Dudson, London
Artnews, "The Creative Act" vol. 56, no. 4 [June 1957], pg 28-29).
Cabanne P "Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp" translated by Ron Padgett [New York: Viking Press, 1967 (On-line accessed 12.9.02] URL:
Conrad P, 1998, "Modern Times, Modern Places, Life and Art in the 20th Century" Published by Thames and Hudson, London
Naumann F, 1999, "Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", Published by Ludion Press, New York
Nelson R, Shiff R, 1992 "Critical Terms for Art History" Published by The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London
Ramirez J A, 1993, "Duchamp, Love and Death, Even" Published by Reaktion Books, Florence
Bibliography
Ades D, Cox N, Hopkins D, 1999, "Marcel Duchamp" Published by Thames and Dudson, London
Artnews, "The Creative Act" vol. 56, no. 4 [June 1957], pg 28-29).
Cabanne P "Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp" translated by Ron Padgett [New York: Viking Press, 1967 (On-line accessed 12.9.02] URL:
Conrad P, 1998, "Modern Times, Modern Places, Life and Art in the 20th Century" Published by Thames and Hudson, London
Naumann F, 1999, "Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Making Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction", Published by Ludion Press, New York
Nelson R, Shiff R, 1992 "Critical Terms for Art History" Published by The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London
Ramirez J A, 1993, "Duchamp, Love and Death, Even" Published by Reaktion Books, Florence