Last week after lecture, we had a free afternoon (this means no museum visit/auction preview/gallery visit/seminar/professional development session/etc) soooo I took advantage and instead of heading back to my flat, went to the Barbican to see the exhibition on Duchamp.
Now...if you know anything about modern art, you have probably heard the name Duchamp. If not, let me educate you...
This is perhaps his most provocative "sculpture"...or at least it is his most well known. Many would say that it changed the course of art history forever. By placing a urinal on a plinth, Duchamp challenged what was considered "art" and insisted that it was the idea that counted as art more so than the object.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Marcel Duchamp (French by origin) was born in Normandy in 1887. He studied painting at the Academie Julian in 1904-5. His early paintings are influenced by Matisse (at that time, "fauvism" ...or a focus on color over shape, was the predominate trend in art). He then moved onto cubist paintings, having seen Picasso and Braque's work. Interestingly, the show included some of these cubist paintings from this early period in Duchamp's career.
In 1912, Duchamp invented the idea of a "readymade," or taking ordinary objects of everyday use and slightly altering them. The urinal, titled Fountain, was entered into an exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in New York in 1917, causing an international controversy. It was considered an assault on the conventional understanding of art. It was a simple concept...if an artist says its a work of art, having had some say over its context/meaning, then it is a work of art...and it caused a revolution.
In this way, Duchamp can be seen as more of a philosopher than an artist.
This show is dedicated both to Duchamp but also to the American artists he influenced (and who influenced him).
Works by John Cage, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, and Merce Cunningham also grace the walls of the space. The two works below are by Jasper Johns - you can clearly see the employment of the "readymade" in these works.
Untitled (Late Kabal American Zephyr), 1985
Painted Bronze, 1960
Here were a few of my favorites -
another Jasper Johns - Dancers on a Plane, 1979
Field Painting, 1963-64
Robert Rauschenberg, Minutiae, 1976
Music and dance were also part of the overall experience - really well done and a new take on these artists and this period.
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