Arts
fromHyperallergic
1 day agoMarcel Duchamp Was the Messenger of History
Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain' revolutionized art by redefining it beyond traditional aesthetics, paving the way for conceptual and experimental art forms.
The exhibition will reflect the loops and the reiterations, the false starts and loose ends of a singular career. It will do so through an apparently simple idea: chronology.
Apart from cer­tain stretch­es of absence, Leonar­do's Mona Lisa has been on dis­play at the Lou­vre for 228 years and count­ing. Though cre­at­ed by an Ital­ian in Italy, the paint­ing has long since been a part of French cul­ture. At some point, the rev­er­ence for La Joconde, as the Mona Lisa is local­ly known, reached such an inten­si­ty as to inspire the label Jocondisme. For Mar­cel Duchamp, it all seems to have been a bit much.
Marcel Duchamp's goal was to 'put art back in the service of the mind,' creating a synergy between language, thought, and vision. His film Anémic Cinéma exemplifies this aim through nine optical illusions and complex wordplay.