Just think of him as
Syndrome in The Incredibles
I think modern art is like Marmite, you either love it (and
kind of get it) or you hate it (and
definitely do not get what they are trying
to achieve). It’s probably a bit more violent than reactions to Marmite. Some
people get truly furious when confronted with modern art, because why are these artists famous? Why are
they rich? Why are they even honoured with the term ‘artist’? Take Duchamp’s Fountain (1917), for instance. It is a
urinal. Yet, thousands of essays, journals and books have been published
dedicated to this ‘piece’. Is it art? Or
is it just a urinal?
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| Fountain (1917) |
Researching Duchamp recently, I keep asking myself these
questions. When I first began my reading into Dadaism (the movement of which
Duchamp was a pioneer), I was secure in
my belief that it was a group of men creating rubbish who have been given far
too much fame and inflated influence. They seem to get away with the fact
they are terrible at art by saying their whole shtick is to create ‘non-art’ and anarchy against conventional art
forms.
Well, that seems like a weak effort to just grab a urinal,
label it a ‘ready-made’ and say you’re doing it to protest against art. Right?
Maybe… but maybe not.
In this situation it is important to think about the context
of Dada. It emerged during and after WWI, when many young artists had been
killed. They held ‘respectable society’ responsible for the state of Europe.
These were the elite who visited galleries and sat on art boards and judged
what was ‘in’ and what was ‘out’. Artists like Duchamp wanted to attack them in
the ways they knew how- by creating art that ridiculed the entire discipline.
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| In Advance of the Broken Arm (1915) |
Of course, like every other art movement in history, they
were also obsessed with being ‘new’ and coming at art from a revolutionary,
untouched angle. In this case, they decided it should be about making normal,
everyday objects into art. They were interested in how mechanical tools could
symbolise the human body. (Yep, sounds pretty weird but stick with me…)
Duchamp declared that objects
became works of art as soon as he said they were. As soon as he picked up
something (like a coal-shovel) it ceased to be a mundane item and became a
masterpiece. Just looking at it made it
art. Yeah, that’s where In Advance of
the Broken Arm (1915) comes in. It is a revolution against the old ideas of
‘Art’, because it flips all preconceptions of standards and talent on their
head. By making everything art… nothing is art. Just think of Duchamp as
Syndrome in The Incredibles…
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| When everything is art, nothing is. |
Now we get more
complicated with Duchamp’s other iconic DADA piece The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (1915). Also known
as The Large Glass, the meanings
behind it are pretty out there. In an effort to avoid standard paint and
canvas, Duchamp represents bodies with
items like a sieve and chocolate grinder. The ‘Bride’ in the upper corner
is made with wire but is supposed to be undressing seductively. The nine
‘bachelors’ underneath try to get her attention. Gas (representing desire)
flows from the bachelors around other objects. Duchamp was trying to humorously
show machines falling in love.
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| The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (1915) |
It was accidentally shattered in 1927 while returning from
an exhibition in Brooklyn. Because of the cult-like following behind Duchamp,
myths emerged that he had always intended for the glass to break
and the exact shatters to appear. He said it showed the flow of the
relationship between men and women and declared the piece was finally finished.
Not gonna lie, I call bull on that one.
I don’t think you can say an entirely accidental breakage was always part of
the plan, but it kind of shows how fluid the idea of ‘art’ had become in Dada,
which is still quite an interesting idea.
 |
| Yep. |
Duchamp eventually
gave up art in favour of becoming a professional chess player, which just
adds to the whole joke of his career. Who knows, perhaps Duchamp really was
taking the piss the entire time, seeing how long his jokes could enthral the
snobs of the art world? If this is the case, it’s still working, because here I
am writing about it, and here you are, reading about it.
I’m still trying to decide what side of the Marmite debate I
fall on. Should Duchamp be listed in the
same books as masters including Degas and Da Vinci? I think it’s ok to hate
Duchamp’s work, I think he’d probably enjoy the fact we are still talking about
it, 100 years later, trying to pin art terms onto objects he found around the
house.
