"Readymade@100" (Part 1)

It is hard to name a more polarizing event in 20th century art history than Marcel Duchamp’s selection of mass-produced, commodity items and their re-contextualization as art objects. 

Clearly, Duchamp’s theoretical positioning of commercially manufactured things as “art objects” has continued to provoke controversy and to influence subsequent generations of artists. His act of “choice” has become the exemplar of an art practice that would birth Conceptual Art as an art theory stressing the idea as paramount over the form an object may take. Duchamp himself may have foreseen the potential impact of his invention when he said: “I’m not at all sure that the concept of the readymade isn’t the most important single idea to come out of my work.”(1)

Duchamp had lost interest in painting by 1912, partly from disappointment at the reception given to his Nude Descending a Staircase and partly because so-called advanced painting of that era, in its emulation and admiration of scientific or optical theories of color, had continued to reinforce the existing aesthetic canon that Duchamp would come to dismiss as “retinal art.”

Ironically, Duchamp’s decision to mount a bicycle wheel atop a stool was perhaps related to his fascination with movement, as he described watching that wheel turn was like “looking at the flames dancing in a fireplace.”(2) By the time Duchamp arrived in America in 1915, and discovered the English word readymade that described machine-made clothing, he retroactively tagged two of his most memorable commodity object choices, Bottle Rack and In Advance of the Broken Arm (the snow shovel), as readymades. Duchamp now understood that simply through his intellectual selection of these industrial forms he was given a means of “substitution of the handmade by the already manufactured.”(3)

To address the legacy of the readymade, as well as attempt a determination of its evolving “definitions” in current art practice, are the chief curatorial goals for this exhibit. Thus, “Readymade@100,” a Centennial Celebration of Duchamp’s invention, included an “open call” exhibition opportunity for contemporary artists to submit “new readymades” that would honor his concept and/or significantly expand upon the readymade concept.

In early reviews of artists’ submissions, I began to grasp how the collective and continued understanding of Duchamp’s idea was sometimes respectfully copied and just as often brazenly ignored, but frequently indelibly transformed by contemporary artists. It became abundantly clear to me that our “Readymade@100” exhibition, far from being mere homage to “The Old Fox,”(4) may also provide us an opportunity for an appraisal of the multiple trajectories this marvelous, contrary and liberating concept has taken into the 21^st century.

My curatorial vision was to maintain an emphatic reverence for Duchamp’s selection of the unaltered, manufactured object as encompassing both a disruption of the object’s function and its concomitant transformation through its new context as art. Further, and on this point most scholars agree, Duchamp was first to designate unaltered, manufactured objects as art and to present these commodity objects as his readymades. Thus, he distinguishes his choice as the conceptual act of “making art” from existing mass-produced objects and this distinction separates Duchamp’s readymades from works that were created from “found objects” and then further modified and/or altered by artists.

In curating the submissions for “Readymade@100,” I applied strict criteria for acceptance based on what I perceive as Duchamp’s original vision. Moreover, this required respect for a century’s worth of academic and scholarly research on the subject. Before discussing my curatorial selections, I want to clarify my elimination of assemblage from the exhibit. Assemblage is “made from natural or man-made objects, is labor-intensive, sculptural and an additive process to develop form. As such, it is far from the essence of a readymade, even though it is sometimes constructed of found objects,”(5) because the result becomes one’s aesthetic composition that drifts away from Duchamp’s conceptual act of choosing a commodity object. Thus, the essence of Duchamp’s anti-aesthetics, this “anesthesia” of taste in his readymade act, is that “the abandonment of craft constitutes the craft.”(6)

But let Duchamp speak for himself as he strictly adjudicates all paintings as assemblage: “Since the tubes of paint used by the artist are manufactured and readymade products, we must conclude that all the paintings in the world are ‘readymades aided’ and also works of assemblage.”(7)

[NEXT WEEK: PART 2, “1ST ORDER READYMADES”]

IMAGE: Illustration by unknown artist that appeared in a Parisian newspaper on the 65th Anniversary of the readymade; English translation of the caption reads, “Marcel Duchamp buying at the Bazar of the Hotel de Ville one of the objects he brought to New York in 1915 and called Readymades.” (Reproduction courtesy of Lila Snow.) 

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1. Tomkins, Calvin. Duchamp: A Biography; New York: Museum of Modern Art Edition; 2014; p. 155.

2. Schwartz, Arturo. The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp; New York: Delano Greenidge; 2000; p. 588.

3. Alkhas, Anita. “Heidegger in Plain Sight: ‘The Origin of the Work of Art’ and Marcel Duchamp;” Journal of Philosophy: A Cross-Disciplinary Inquiry; Vol. 5: No. 12; Spring 2010; p. 5.

4. Walter Hopps’ characterization of Duchamp in letter dated August 20, 1963 to Frederic S. Wight, then chair of UCLA Art Department; original in Norton Simon Museum Archives, Pasadena, CA.

5. Boyd, M. C. THEORY NOW: Always Alreadymade: Found Object or Readymade?

6. De Duve, Thierry. “The Readymade and Abstraction” in Pictorial Nominalism: On Marcel Duchamp’s Passage from Painting to the Readymade; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press; 1991; p. 158.

7. Duchamp, Marcel. “Apropos of Readymades” in Salt Seller: The Essential Writings of Marcel Duchamp; (Michel Sanouillet, Elmer Peterson: eds.); New York: Oxford University Press; 1973; 142.

Readymades Defined

Joan Bakewell interviews MD for BBC; video share courtesy Art History Lab.

The Orders

The Orders

1^st order readymade (commodity object without “assist”);

2^nd order “assisted” readymade;

3^rd order readymade (conceptually combined commodity objects);

4^th order readymade (object combined with “action”).

Objet trouvé 

Object of indeterminate function, origin and/or conscious recognition.

IMAGE: Chee Wang Ng; Still from “108 Global Rice Bowls”; 2^nd order “assisted” readymade.

"The Old Fox"

Marcel Duchamp: a system of paradox in resonance.

The man inspires the highest regard (often the love) of those who know him; the public so often regards his work as anathema. He ranks with the greatest artists of the century without any conscious concern for either greatness or specifically being an artist. None of his peers has produced or exhibited as little as he to achieve such stature. He is "a merchant of wit" who's major works are as complex as any produced in the time. It has been said: Duchamp shows it hard, but in the easiest way. 

The paradox of this characterization resolves in a word (and a pun): an-artist. Being neither "anti" nor "pro" art, he has directly and indirectly further the development of many colleagues and modern art in general, participating in movements without the need to join, warning that art can be "a habit-forming drug," and cautioning that removed from the glare and noise of today's vast art world, vital activities will go on "underground." The gentleman is truly an-artist.

As to Duchamp's achievement ("greatness"), let it be enough to say that in spite of all (and intentions, even) the depth and meaning in his work continues to unfold and seems increasingly pertinent. In his pioneering, particularly that of object art with its marriage of "things" and "linguistic concepts," he has registered an incredible number of "patents." 

Walter Hopps

[Single page document found in Norton Simon Museum archives on MD's 1963 retrospective, by or of Marcel Duchamp or Rrose Selavy; n.d.

Photograph by Julian Wasser; © Copyright by Julian Wasser.

Found Object or Readymade?

Now that submissions are starting to roll in on our "Call for Entries" for Readymade@100 at AU's Katzen Arts Center, some definitions are in order before the deluge. In unpacking "what constitutes a readymade" in 2014, 100 years after Duchamp's first object was tagged with the name, there are two art terms that should be examined, both for general readers of this site and, most urgently, for those artists out there who plan to submit their "new readymades." 

The easier of the two terms is assemblage, which is essentially a three-dimensional collage composed of objects instead of flat materials like paper or photographs. Assemblage in art (not to be confused with MIT's now defunct architectural theory journal or the on-line collaborative for "real-time connectedness") can be made from natural or man-made objects, is labor-intensive, sculptural and an additive process to develop form. As such, it is far from the essence of a readymade, even though it is sometimes constructed of found objects.  

That's the thornier of the two art terms, the found object, or objet trouvé. The difficulty arises because some art historians, scholars, critics and curators throughout the 20th Century have exasperatingly continued to classify found objects as readymades, and conversely, confuse readymades with found objects.

True, readymades must be found first but let us be clear: it was Marcel Duchamp who definitively established the manufactured, mass-produced, commodity object as a readymade, first using the term in 1914. As will be mentioned often during the next four months leading up to the September 6th opening of Readymade@100, it was Duchamp's choice that defined his act as an artistic one. Furthermore, Duchamp's engagement with the context of an art exhibition (Society of Independent Artists, 1917) by entering his readymade Fountain (subsequently rejected) that sparked over a century of debate about the definition of art and what constitutes an artwork. 

At this juncture, and again I stress "before the deluge," I simply want to offer Margaret Iversen's distinguished essay, "Readymade, Found Object, Photograph." Let this serve as evidence of the complexities of the associative "unconscious" designation of the objet trouvé:

"The found object shares with the readymade a lack of obvious aesthetic quality and little intervention on the part of the artist beyond putting the object in circulation, but in almost every other respect it is dissimilar. The difference is attributable to [Andre] Breton's positioning the found object in a different space -- the space of the unconscious. [...] The object found as if by chance is situated at the point of connection between external nature, perception, and the unconscious, and thus has a peculiar, elusive relation to vision. The space occupied by the found object is carved out by traumatic experience, defined precisely as an experience that has failed to achieve a representation, but on which, nonetheless, one’s whole existence depends. I will argue that this object calls attention to itself by creating a hole in the fabric of normal perception. This may sound as though I'm contrasting the found object with the readymade in terms of a subjectivity/anti-subjectivity polarity, but the matter is not so simple. The traumatic subject is not the personal self that was so strenuously avoided in the tradition of disinterested art. Both that tradition and Surrealism were interested in the displacement of the artist’s agency."(1)

With both found objects and readymades requiring "little intervention" from the artist we can perhaps see the confusion between the two. However, Iversen's emphasis on the "traumatic experience" that allows the subject to find an object that visualizes the "hole in the fabric of normal perception" distinguishes the found object as an unconscious selection. Moreover, Iversen cites Breton's Mad Love (1937) for later influencing psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan's retooling of the Freudian trauma as a "Surrealist encounter," to crystalize her distinction between found object and readymade: 

"The found object is encountered and the effect is traumatic. The contrast between the Duchampian rendezvous and the Bretonian encounter should now be clear. While the readymade is essentially indifferent, multiple, and mass-produced, the found object is essentially singular or irreplaceable, and both lost and found."(2)

How will this figure in my curatorial consideration of your "new readymade" submissions? Instead of requesting a psychoanalyst to accompany my review of the Readymade@100 image submissions, I will have to trust my visceral response to each of the objects that I regard. The possibility that a mass-produced, commodity object may fulfill an artist's "singular or irreplaceable" traumatic need is obviously very real. Certainly, I do not wish to miss such a delightful object as Breton's little wooden spoon that he found in a Paris flea market, and whose delicious mystery Man Ray's evocative photograph, reproduced above, only slightly captures.


IMAGE: "From a little spoon that was part of it..." (1934); photograph by Man Ray, published in Andre Breton, Mad Love. Copyright 2004, Man Ray Trust/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London. 

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1. Iversen, Margaret. "Found Object, Readymade, Photograph" in Art Journal, Vol. 63, No. 2; Summer 2004; 48-49.

2. Ibid., 50.

KATZEN ART CENTER "CALL FOR ENTRIES" FOR "READYMADE@100"

This Fall, the American University Museum at Katzen Arts Center will present “Readymade@100,” an exhibit celebrating the 100th anniversary of Marcel Duchamp’sreadymade concept. The exhibition is curated by Maryland artist, art theorist, and Corcoran College of Art and Design professor Mark Cameron Boyd and includes an “open call,” juried exhibit opportunity seeking submissions of “new” readymades from artists that significantly expand upon Duchamp’s idea. As the originary conceptual act, Duchamp’s choice of commercially available objects for art exhibition, such as “Bottle Rack” and his infamous “Fountain”urinal, secured his reputation in art history. It was Duchamp’s location of these objects within the “art context” that began a century of debate about the definitions of art and established Duchamp’s influence on contemporary art practices.“Readymade@100” will both celebrate Duchamp’s vision and recognize the relevance of the readymade by exhibiting new work by emergent artists that continue a contemporary development of the concept.

The American University Museum will publish a catalog of the exhibition with reproductions of selected artworks and a curatorial essay, and public talks and a lecture are planned during the exhibition.

CALL FOR ENTRIES

Submissions of artwork must be in high-resolution (300dpi) digital format and must be received by June 15, 2014. Artists interested in submitting work who require further information may contact museum@american.edu

What is a Readymade?

So what is a readymade?

Launch of Readymade@100

This site is launched to foster a celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Duchamp's Readymades in 2014.

Duchamp had first mounted a bicycle wheel atop a stool: "In 1913 I had the happy idea to fasten a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool and watch it turn." Yet only after coming to New York did he begin to call them "readymades" - "any object purchased as a sculpture already made." The "Bottle Rack" of 1914 is credited with being the "first" readymade by Duchampian scholars.

Interested curators, galleries, museums or other parties may propose exhibitions, lectures, etc. by contacting Mark Cameron Boyd via email at Theory Now.