Art

Marcel Duchamp | HOW TO SEE “Readymades” with MoMA curator Ann Temkin



One hundred years ago this month, Marcel Duchamp changed the art world forever by unveiling Fountain—a urinal presented as a “readymade” work of art. MoMA Chief Curator Ann Temkin explains how Duchamp forced us to rethink the role of art and the artist.

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22 thoughts on “Marcel Duchamp | HOW TO SEE “Readymades” with MoMA curator Ann Temkin
  1. Saw the Duchamp bike wheel with my old dad. He walked over and gave it a spin. I think he did the right thing, but I’m glad none of the guards spotted us. (Good thing it wasn’t the urinal)

  2. Duchamp was all about challenging thinking and redefining, rethinking the idea of art. His work was more an exercise of thinking rather than an exercise of craft. The artist as a person with thought processes. The people who cannot see that what he did is an art have a particular and rather traditional definition of art. What is art to you?

  3. Duchamp said that until his time painting was what you could see, that he made it intellectual. Today we know he then stopped painting, Duchamp made no paintings in 40 years after he made painting intellectual. It's when they tell us what to think while looking at work that you know the work is a failure. The point of a real work of art – is that we do not need to be told what to think, a real work speaks volumes at a glance. Think Anish Kapoor. Besides, Duchamp always said the Readymade are not art When asked how he came to choose the Readymade, Duchamp replied, “Please note that I didn’t want to make a work of art out of it … when I put a bicycle wheel on a stool … it was just a distraction. I didn’t have any special reason … or any intention of showing it, or describing anything. The word ‘Readymade’ thrusts itself on me then. It seemed perfect for these things that weren’t works of art, that weren’t sketches, and to which no term of art applies.” Duchamp knew that if a Readymade were art, finding an object would be equivalent to, and as valuable, as months of actual studio work; a troublesome speculation that obviously disturbed him as it has others ever since.

    At a 1998 Dia panel discussion Rosalind Krauss mentioned that (except for Mondrian and Seurat) Duchamp despised optical art and disliked artisanal work. We would be surprised to read that Shakespeare despised grammar, or Stravinsky loathed musical notes; these are things to respect, not to despise. It does seem like Duchamp was wrong and his ideas destroyed his ability to make art. Now tell me why this is such a wonderful thing. Jasper Johns wrote that Duchamp wanted to kill art “for himself” and we know he did, destroyed his ability to make art. Johns went on to say Duchamp tolerated, even encouraged the mythology around that ‘stopping’, “but it was not like that he said… He spoke of breaking a leg. ‘You didn’t mean to do it’ he said”. It is important to understand that if you say art is not worth making and repeat it often enough as Duchamp did, you will eventually believe it and lose interest in making art. Then, having succeeded in destroying art he poked at Étant donnés for the next twenty years, as if trying to revive a lost relationship.

  4. ha ha, with all art forms they are open to critics if all abilities to mock, judge, praise.., I'm not to bothered at any negative comments about Duchamp, however, he did these things while everyone else didn't…

  5. What an unfortunate subtitle: How to see. The whole business of the avant garde art project, and specifically the Dada movement, is to unsee our ways of seeing.

  6. I think that Duchamp is simply a thief. Every "Readymade" was made by someone who regarded the work and craft as a work of art. Each of these is designed or created by a person or perhaps a "collective", to use a currently artsy term, for whom the object represented an achievement of intellect, craft, and insight. By declaring himself as the arbiter of what is art he has stolen their talent and work and presented it as his own.

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