The Tamesis
Between 1912 and 1914, Duchamp created three-dimensional futuristic works King and Queen surrounded by swift nudityas well as schematics, prototype pop renderings of two versions of the machine used by confectioners to crush cocoa beans (chocolate grinder); the latter later became a central element in his masterpiece, large glass.
Meanwhile, in 1913, Duchamp mounted the bicycle’s front wheel vertically on a stool, allowing it to rotate freely. He told Tompkins that he kept it in his studio as “a delightful little bric-a-brac.” In 1914, a bottle drying rack was purchased in the Bazar de l’Hôtel de Ville department store in Paris.
With these objects, Duchamp crossed the Rubicon of art history and revolutionized fundamental assumptions about artistic practice. Now, anything can be art as long as the artist thinks it is. Duchamp took Braque and Picasso’s introduction of collage into painting to its logical conclusion, crystallizing the leap from art to life.
Nonetheless, Duchamp did not fully appreciate what he was doing until 1915, when he was living in New York, where he encountered the literal manufactured god Moloch. This served to clarify what he meant by “delightful gadgets.” In a letter to his sister Suzanne, Duchamp mentioned bicycle wheels and bottle racks, explaining that he had also “bought some objects of similar taste” while in New York. “I would treat them as ‘off the shelf,'” he wrote. “I sign it, and then…then write the English inscription.” He went on to quote one of his most famous such works, a snow shovel inscribed “Before the Broken Arm,” and ended the letter by instructing Susanna to sign a rack of wine bottles in Paris, “After Marcel Duchamp.”
What follows is a series of ready-mades, some of which Duchamp modified or “assisted.” In one example, he drew Van Dyke’s mustache on a postcard of the Mona Lisa and then added “LHOOQ” below the image—letters that, when pronounced in French, translate to “she has a sexy ass.”
The most controversial readymade, however, is an upside-down urinal called fountainDuchamp anonymously participated in the first exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in 1917 under the name R. Mutt. Although the Rules Committee stipulated that any work would be accepted as long as the artist paid the $60 admission fee, it refused to allow fountain into the exhibition area—prompting Duchamp to walk out with it. fountain Later appeared in a photo taken by Alfred Stieglitz on the cover of Dada magazine blindIn it, Duchamp passionately defended R. Mutt’s intentions. “It does not matter whether Mr. Mutter … built the fountain,” he wrote. “He took an ordinary life… [and] A new idea is created for that object. ” He wryly added that the piece was a celebration of America, whose only true works of art were “her pipes and bridges.”
