Topic 3
Dawn of Conceptual Art - Marcel Duchamp
Marcel Duchamp and the “Readymade” Marcel Duchamp was a French-American painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work became associated with Cubism and Conceptual Art. He is regarded as one of the three artists who helped define the revolutionary developments of Conceptual Art. He created what is now known as the “readymade” in 1913, which were ordinary objects of everyday use, that were designated works of art by the artist.
The “Readymade” “Readymades” were ordinarily manufactured objects that an artist selected and modified. By choosing the object (or objects) and repositioning, joining, titling and signing it, the new object became art. The readymade or object is true of a found object which stands in place of an artwork, as an artwork performing the work of art but not necessarily being constructed as such. Duchamp defined “readymades” as unassisted or assisted/ rectified. Unassisted “readymades” were ordinary objects signed and titled by the artists, where the assisted ones were made of the readymade materials, but assemblage was required. Bicycle Wheel, 1913 was an assisted readymade.
Marcel Duchamp, Bottle Rack, 1914
The “Readymade” The publics initial response to “readymades” was to consider the end of art. This is still the opinion of many people today when they view Duchamp’s “readymades”. Critics considered that “readymades” made the concept of art meaningless because it removes the limits around what is considered art. Many of these criticisms focus on the loss of the artist’s hand in the creation of the artwork. Duchamp’s “readymades” challenge basic ideas of art and engage with the expectations of the viewer. It’s the viewers responsibility to value the artwork and ultimately decide if it is art.
Marcel Duchamp, Why Not Sneeze Rose Sélavy?, 1921, replica 1964
Bicycle Wheel, 1913 Bicycle Wheel in particular was not designed to shock the public, but it was an attempt at playing with the idea that something could be designated as ‘art’ by the artist. It was a huge conceptual leap that represented the shifts in art theory, mass production and exhibition art that has already occurred.
Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Wheel, 1951, third version after lost original of 1913
Fountain, 1917 Duchamp’s most famous readymade is Fountain, 1917 was a joking criticism of an un-curated group exhibition’s organising committee that Duchamp had resigned from. It is designated to be an artwork. It was purchased from a plumbing shop on Fifth Avenue in New York and delivered to this independent society of artists after it was rejected from a previous exhibition. The actual rationale for producing this while work is said to have originated with Duchamp’s annoyance. There was no jury to judge the entries in this particular show. Everything submitted was to be included and if that were the case then anything submitted could be art and that idea in itself challenging the expectations of what art was supposed to do, and what artists were supposed to be doing.
Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917
What is Art? The point Duchamp was making was that the art museum or art gallery privileged anything exhibited in it, by immediately conferring upon it the status of art. Was anything placed inside an art gallery therefore art? What characteristics immediately ratify an object as a sculpture or an artwork? Is one of the essential, defining characteristics of an artwork that it be original; something that retains the mark and trace of the artist’s hand and vision?
Interventions Marcel Duchamp made very minor interventions upon his readymades to declare them as artworks. He usually signed them, but not always just to make things confusing. He also would hang them from the ceiling. In the case of in Advance with the Broken Arm, 1915 he would give them new titles when needed. Beginning in 1913 Duchamp challenged accepted artistic standards by selecting mass-produced, functional objects from everyday life and designating them as works of art. These sculptures, which he called “readymades,� were aimed at subverting traditional notions of skill, uniqueness, and beauty, boldly declaring that an artist could create simply by making choices. Duchamp purchased the first version of this work in a hardware store in 1915, signed and dated the shovel, and hung it on display from his studio ceiling. Its title, In Advance of the Broken Arm, playfully alludes to the objects intended purpose.
Marcel Duchamp and Dada The idea of presenting a found object as an artwork is not entirely new. In China, Korea and Japan, there is a very rich heritage of found rocks, as naturally formed shapes being art. The readymades of Marcel Duchamp, sought indifference. Marcel Duchamp never said he was an artist – he described himself as a chess player. He rejected art frequently to play chess. He was briefly married, and was divorced over his obsessive love of chess. Dada was an almost pop-punk type movement in the sense that it started with poetry slams, performed in ways that was designed to shock and confuse. It also applies to graphic design – the similar use of incoherent typography. The use of subversive political qualities that tried to undermine any system of value, so you could not purchase the artwork in traditional ways. It’s anti-authority.
Raoul Hausmann, The Art Critic, 1919–20
Alfred H. Barr Alfred H. Barr, the first director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, famously tried to map the trajectories of modernist art in the United States at the time he was working, in order to make a curatorial rationale for the display of works in his collection in the institution he was running. In this group of objects you will see how from the late 19th century, a cluster of ideas at the top from Japanese prints, synthesism, to Neo-Impressionism, a bit of a strange gap there at the turn of the century and then a bunch of very technologically inspired art forms, Cubism, Suprematism, the machine aesthetic Futurism and Abstract Expressionism. Duchamp fits somewhere in between all of those as kind of an outlier. That’s why we don’t really have a position here for Duchamp specifically, although he informs and is informed by all of those things
Marcel Duchamp and Cubism Duchamp could be described early on as a cubist. We can see that elements of figuration when they’re divided form, which is trying to consider the actual shape, not just from any one position but multiple positions at the same time.
Marcel Duchamp, Bride, 1912
Marcel Duchamp and Cubism Nude descending a staircase, no. 2 is Marcel Duchamp’s most famous cubist painting. He is experimenting with the concepts of cubism in his own terms. It’s been described as an explosion in a shingle factory, backtrack to critics, but others of course may look at this as the influence of photography and the compound images of figures in motion where we are blurring and joining these images together.
Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase, 1912
50cc of Paris Air, 1919 Duchamp purchased this “empty” ampule from a pharmacist in Paris as a souvenir for his close friend and patron, Walter C. Arensberg. A vial with nothing in it may be the most insubstantial “work of art” imaginable. From a molecular point of view, air is not considered nothing, but when displayed so carefully in an art museum it seems to be less than one might expect. Its precise meaning was rendered even more unstable in 1949, when the ampule was accidentally broken and repaired, thus begging the question: Is the air even from Paris anymore?
Marcel Duchamp, 50cc of Paris Air, 1912
Conceptual Art Language was an important tool for Conceptual artists in the 1960s. Many used language in place of more traditional materials like brushes and canvas, and words played a primary role in their emphasis on ideas over visual forms. Conceptual artists also used language in the form of instructions detailing how an artwork should be made. Sol LeWitt was among the principal originators of this strategy, which his peers widely embraced. Arguing that ideas alone can be art, he allowed for a measure of separation between the artist and the physical execution of his or her artwork. His work exemplifies this: he would generate ideas for artworks and write instructions on how to make them, which other people — sometimes whole teams working days or weeks — would then carry out.
Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #1136, 2004
Conceptual Art During the 1960s, there was an increased interest in ‘context’, with motivations becoming variously political, aesthetic, ecological, theatrical, structuralist, philosophical, journalistic and psychological. Political unrest and growing social consciousness that characterised the sixties, also encouraged people to avoid the traditionally used mediums and ‘art’ and the ‘artist’. Many artists were uninterested in or morally opposed to the traditional practice of style and value. Others wanted to ridicule, and some felt confined by the gallery space. Printed and spoken words offered a new spectrum of media to replace painting and sculpture. Newspapers, magazines, advertising, books and catalogues all became new means of expression and a way for Conceptual artists to communicate their art to the world.
Bruce McLean, Pose Work for Plinths I, 1971
Language in Conceptual Art Despite the extreme diversity of conceptual art, there was a uniting emphasis on language or linguistically analogous systems. Language and ideas were the true essence of art and visual experience and sensory responses were second. Lawrence Wiener said that “without language there is no art�, which raises the idea that language gave Conceptualists their distinct radical character. Throughout the 1960s, Conceptual Art made an entirely new use of photography, film and video as it was now widely available. Through the non-unique visual image, these mediums came pervasive as language.
Joseph Kosuth, Clock (One and Five), English/Latin Version 1965
Language in Conceptual Art Due to Conceptual Art’s reliance on language, the movement developed at a high speed into the art world. The reliance on language allowed for it to be easily communicated. The practicing Conceptual artists used language as a tool, to which brought aspects of life to their works. Douglas Huebler used language to convey or gather information, to discuss complex non-visual images, often political in nature, or simply to depict human existence.
Douglas Huebler, Duration Piece #6 1968
Richard Hamilton’s Reconstruction “In carrying out this reconstruction of The Large Glass, Richard Hamilton deliberately avoided making a copy that acknowledged its fifty years of aging and deterioration. Instead he set out to make it as it was conceived, accepting that it would similarly change to some extent with the passage of time. Rather than simply working from photographs of the completed work, Hamilton used the notes and drawings of The Green Box to closely follow Duchamp’s original process of creation. By doing this, thirteen years of work were compressed into nearly as many months. As Hamilton recalled after finishing the project, ‘mental effort was exerted only in the direction of detective work, deductions from signs marking a path to be followed – the creative anguish was erased from the trail’. When Duchamp came to London for the opening of his exhibition in 1966, he agreed to sign the reconstruction and the four glass studies produced by Hamilton, inscribing on the back ‘pour copie conforme’ (‘for a faithful replica’).”
“The world is full of objects, more or less interesting, and I do not wish to add any more. I prefer, simply, to state the existence of things in time and space.” – Douglas Huebler (1968)
An Oak Tree, 1973 “The actual oak tree is physically present but in the form of the glass of water ... Just as it is imperceptible, it is also inconceivable.” - Extract from the dialogue depicted in the illustration “I considered that in An Oak Tree I had deconstructed the work of art in such a way as to reveal its single basic and essential element, belief that is the confident faith of the artist in his capacity to speak and the willing faith of the viewer in accepting what he has to say. In other words belief underlies our whole experience of art: it accounts for why some people are artists and others are not, why some people dismiss works of art others highly praise, and why something we know to be great does not always move us.” - (Quoted in Michael Craig-Martin, Landscapes, 2001: 20) Michael Craig Martin, An Oak Tree, 1973
Measurements There’s an aesthetic consideration of what beauty means here that is not normally part of conceptual art and certainly was not part of the readymades. In this case, as noted by the mathematician, a large part of what a mathematician does may be described as exploring things which they discover through reasoning, which becomes real to them as the house they live in, but have no material existence at all. I hope you find an easy comparison there to their work. Conceptual artists, no material existence, but fundamentally real principles and processes and effective conceptual arts is drawing your attention to something you did not realize could or should exist or a gap in existence itself.
On Kawara “On January 4, 1966, On Kawara began his Today series, or Date Paintings. He worked on the series for nearly five decades. A Date Painting is a monochromatic canvas of red, blue, or gray with the date on which it was made inscribed in white. Date Paintings range in size from 8 x 10 inches to 61 x 89 inches. The date is composed in the language and convention of the place where Kawara made the painting. When he was in a country with a non-Roman alphabet, he used Esperanto. He did not create a painting every day, but some days he made two, even three. The paintings were produced meticulously over the course of many hours according to a series of steps that never varied. If a painting was not finished by midnight, he destroyed it. The quasi-mechanical element of his routine makes the production of each painting an exercise in meditation. Kawara fabricated a cardboard storage box for each Date Painting. Many boxes are lined with a cutting from a local newspaper. Works were often given subtitles, many of which he drew from the daily press.
On Kawara, Date Paintings, 1966 - 2014
On Kawara Kawara’s choice of dates appears to follow no overall principle. Some dates may have been personally or historically significant. Above all, however, the Today series addresses each day as its own entity within the larger context of the regularized passage of time. The series speaks to the idea that the calendar is a human construct, and that quantifications of time are shaped by cultural contexts and personal experiences.”
On Kawara, Date Paintings, 1966 - 2014
On Kawara He also worked extremely methodically with high levels of physical Labour to produce this work. There’s a discipline in the daily practice in this case. His album 1 million years was a hand written calendar listing a million years in consecutive order. There was a gap, however, in the middle of approximately 80 years, which he expected to be his or her lifetime as an artist, which are not numbered in any way because he was doing his date paintings and other systems. He didn’t need to duplicate that effort.
On Kawara, A Million Years, 1970 - 1998
Topic 2
Workshop
Study Guide (45 mins) You will be using the next 45 minutes to answer study guide questions. Note that assessment three requires that you answer four (4) study guide questions. Use this time to find questions that you may respond to and prepare for what you could write. This is a good opportunity to finish an assessment early...
Interpreting (15 mins) Sol LeWitt often hired people to execute his written instructions for works of art. Have someone read LeWitt’s instructions (below) to you while you carry them out. You’ll need a black crayon, a ruler, and paper. After you’re done drawing, switch roles and read the instructions to your partner while he or she draws. Are there differences between the two drawings you made? Is it because the drawer did not correctly follow the instructions or is it because LeWitt’s written instructions can be interpreted in different ways?
Sound Problem (1 hour) The purpose of this exercise is to think conceptually about how you can visually represent a word - or in this case a sound. You will be given a worksheet to complete throughout the next hour. Think about the use of colour, lines, shapes, and other visual principles to create your interpretation of a particular sound.