I wish I could remember a dream I had a couple of nights ago about "In advance of the broken arm." That's the title of one of Marcel Duchamp's readymades. If you were literal minded, you'd say, it was not a work of art, it's a snow shovel hanging in the museum. Different museums even hang different snow shovels and hang them different ways: from the ceiling, on the wall, high or low... As a museum guard in Philadelphia, home of many Duchamp works, once said to us: "that Marcel Duchamp was a piece of work." I love Dada, brainchild of Marcel Duchamp.
On Tuesday in Bloomington, I found a small collection of Duchamp's remade readymades, which no doubt made me dream of "In advance of the broken arm." The museum also has other works such as "Why Not Sneeze -- Rrose Selavy" (shown above). This work consists of a number of sugar cubes made of marble, along with a few other things inside of a cage. The reason Marcel Duchamp so named the work may be because of the marble sugar cubes. You see, he couldn't use real sugar cubes, because art has to last. So he made them out of marble. Which is cold. And gives you a cold. So why not sneeze? There are lots of other "authoritative" versions of why and what this work is about also, which goes along with his method of creating an identity for himself and his work. Why not sneeze -- a joke no one can get -- captures the spirit of Dada. When asked about it in one case, his reason was "pour compliquer les choses."
Duchamp's early readymades dated from just before the first World War, but he remade them in the 1960s -- with the result that you can see them in many museums. In fact the most famous readymade, "Fountain by R. Mutt," was lost or destroyed after it was first submitted to a supposedly un-judged art show. If you were literal minded, you'd say it was a urinal lying on its side with "R. Mutt" written on it. Don't be literal. When challenged that a urinal displayed on its side was not a work of Art, but was only plumbing, Marcel Duchamp defended R. Mutt, noting that plumbing and bridges were the greatest art created in America. Later, he said none of his works were ever accepted at first.
At one time I did a lot of reading about Marcel Duchamp. In the next few posts, I'm going to rework some of what I wrote down at that time.
3 comments:
In further reading about "In advance of the broken arm" I learned that museum guards have once or twice taken down the snow shovel of that title and used it to shovel snow from the steps or sidewalks of the museum.
Speaking of Duchamp's bicycle wheel, it is representative of one class of kinetic sculptures. And going from the least to the most movable the classes are:
CAN MOVE BUT ONLY WITH MAJOR EFFORT
diSuvero's assemblages of scrap steel, many of which have heavy portions suspended with cable or chain (e.g. Shang in front of UMichigan art museum)
MOVES WITH SOME EFFORT
Tony Rosenthal's rotating cube (in NYC and on UMichigan campus) that is pushed by almost any child who runs by.
CAN MOVE BUT NEVER DOES
Duchamp's bicycle wheel --- the museum guards won't let you touch it.
MOVES EASILY
From breezes or from light touch: the mobiles by Calder, the constructions by George Rickey
MOTION ESSENTIAL
e.g. Naum Gabo's kinetic sculpture "Standing Wave" of 1913-- a vertical rod driven into oscillation by an electric motor. If it isn't moving, you see only a long, thin rod.
Thanks, Jens. I love the Dada quality of "Can move but never does" which seems necessary for Duchamp!
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