Marcel Duchamp - Biography
In the history of 20th century art, the French-American artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) was like a smooth, polished stone, skipping across the surface of a pond. He never lingered in any particular scene, movement, or moment for long, but at every place in which he touched down, his brief presence generated concentric waves of influence, waves that continue to radiate outward. Duchamp’s notorious painting, Nude Descending a Staircase No.2 [Nu descendant un escalier n° 2] (1912), first brought him international fame. Transcending the styles of both the Furturists and the Cubists, he recalled the stop-motion, multiple-exposure photographs of Eadweard J. Muybridge; Nude Descending a Staircase No.2 ignited an explosion of controversy when it was unveiled at the 1913 Armory Show in New York, and it can modestly claim credit for launching modern art as we know it. Nude Descending was also one of many explorations Duchamp would conduct regarding the nature of movement, action, and the perception of the senses. He refused to align himself with Andre Breton and the Surreallists, yet in many ways, he was their guiding light. Duchamp devised the exhibition of objects known as “Readymades,” everyday items elevated to the status of art, simply by the will of the artist to choose them as such. Thus, a snow shovel, a urinal, or a bottle tree, signed and designated as art, could negate the scourge of what Duchamp disparaged as “retinal” art, art that was relegated to an exclusively visual experience. The Dadaists were dazzled, and courted Duchamp’s favors, but he politely declined these overtures as well. For Marcel Duchamp, art was a commando attack, a mission to reevaluate and rejuvenate aesthetics by freeing them from the constraints of “high” and “low”; the polemics of “good” and bad.”
Bewteen the years 1915 to 1923, Duchamp created his magnum opus, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (La mariée mise à nu par ses célibataires, même), known informally and most commonly as The Large Glass. Its opaque, absurdist narrative and internalized logic cemented his reputation. He subsequently collaborated with the photographer and filmmaker Man Ray on a series of mechanical devices that generated optical illusions; the pair captured several of these machines, dubbed “Rotoreliefs,” in their film Anémic Cinéma (1926). As the 1920’s progressed, Duchamp professed a disinterest in art, although his ongoing advisory role to collectors like Peggy Guggenheim help steer the direction of 20th century modernity. Instead, Duchamp focused his cerebral talents on the game of chess, which he played incessantly.
Accordingly, upon his passing in 1968, the art world was shocked to discover that Duchamp had been secretly laboring in his studio for decades, on a large-scale, three-dimension tableau, Étant donnés. Étant donnés: 1° la chute d'eau / 2° le gaz d'éclairage (English: Given: 1 The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas) is a multi-media sculpture the size of a small room, visible only through two peepholes in an imposing wooden door. Revealed inside is the body of a nude woman, whose face is concealed; she lies in a meadow holding aloft a gas lamp that flickers; behind her is a bucolic scene with clouds, trees, and a flowing, sparkling waterfall. Étant donnés is celebration of ambiguity, undercut with vague themes of menace, paradox, and heightened artifice. It, and its deliberately posthumous arrival, speak hushed volumes about Marcel Duchamp, and his delightfully enigmatic aesthetics.
Nearly all of Duchamp’s major works, including The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even, Étant donnés, The Green Box, and the Readymades Fountain and Bicycle Wheel, are part of the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. However, we are also fortunate to have a series of available recordings by, of, and related to Duchamp. Erratum Musical (2000 Sub Rosa) features pianist Stephane Ginsburgh interpreting on of Duchamp’s rare musical scores, an aleatoric work that predates John Cage’s forays into chance operations by decades. A series of prescribed instructions seem simple enough: All of the keys on a piano are to be played, none more than once; how they are to be played is at the discretion of the performer. What sounds simple becomes complex, as the monochromatic palette sprouts Technicolor with the addition of human interaction. Surrealism Reviewed (2002 LTM) contains a brief lecture by Duchamp, but that same document is augmented with a much more compelling array of material on Creative Act (2004 Sub Rosa). It’s the first compact disc devoted entirely to Duchamp, and it illuminates a lively array of scarce aural documents. These include a discussion from 1957; the lecture “Some texts from a L'Infinitif,” originally from 1912; a markedly different version of “Erratum Musical”; and, finally, the only extant recording of “A Score For Three Voices,” which Duchamp wrote for his sisters. It’s a fine overview and a valuable addition to the multifaceted oeuvre of the titan of 20th century art.