The Bride Strips Bare

July 29, 2010 Despite lackluster notices, a current video retrospective at the Whitney Museum offers at least one highlight -- Hannah Wilkes' 1976 performance piece, "Through the Large Glass." The short video both literalizes Duchamp's seminal assemblage as Wilkes plays the role of the "Bride" stripping bare in front of the malic molds and subverts its masculine point of view. What does the Large Glass entail from the bride's perspective? Can we see the "Bachelors&.. read more...

‘Another World’ Show Not Different Enough?

July 27, 2010 The Surrealists appear to have lost their power to shock the Scottish press. Reviews of the ongoing retrospective at the Edinburgh Dean Gallery have wavered between bewilderment and boredom, with a few dutiful explanations of how the Dalis, Magrittes and Duchamps on display fit into modern art history. Perhaps the trappings of the surreal -- the melting watches, headless hats and especially the museum-grade toiletries -- have simply become more retinal art for art patrons to.. read more...

Active Art, Passive Entertainment?

July 26, 2010 Duchamp looms large over debates about the role of the observer in art. Is the observer a passive non-participant willing to sit back and be entertained by the work, or is he or she an active partner in the experience? Naturally Duchamp would opt for the latter approach -- even though it renders the artist less central to the process. And of course if both the artist and the observer are actively present, as Maria Abramovic is in her current MOMA show, then the encounter can .. read more...

The Bell & The Glass

July 25, 2010

Christian Marclay’s video tribute to the Liberty Bell and Marcel Duchamp’s Large Glass treats the one object like the musical instrument it was intended to be and the other as a species of musical score — that is, as the visual representation and record of sound.  While critics are mixed, the "Cagean-Duchampian" dimension of the work is clear.

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The Stolen Exhibit

July 22, 2010 "The ECHO exhibit at the Albright-Knox is about appropriation—borrowing, stealing, ripping off and recycling—in art, and opens with the two modern era pathfinders of the practice, Marcel Duchamp from the first part of the 20th century, and Andy Warhol from the second. "Art always appropriated, in spades, but before the modern era what it appropriated was just art. What is called art. Painting, sculpture, architecture. Styles, forms, subjects. &q.. read more...

Taking the Readymade Approach out for a Spin

July 21, 2010

Philadelphia-area artist Joe Dillon III invokes the legacy of Duchamp’s readymades when explaining his mechanically assisted "spin art," but a closer spiritual ancestor may be the rotoreliefs. Dillon’s art reproduces the chance operations of the rotating paint spray seen at carnivals on large-format pegboards. The end effect resembles a mandala, which is to say a rotorelief at rest (or enshrined in the museum).

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Memories of Paik Nam-June

July 20, 2010 Shigeko Kubota, widow of pioneering video artist Paik Nam-June and a noted member of the Fluxus movement in her own right, has published a memoir of her married life. Details of her privileged relationship with Paik (and, of course, vice versa) emerge in the text. For example, apparently her installation Marcel Duchamp's Grave played a significant influence on his own V-yramid... read more...

Lady Gaga Pays Tribute

July 15, 2010 Pop diva Lady Gaga, known for her ability to bridge high concepts with bawdy delivery, has paid a characteristically flashy tribute to the work of Marcel Duchamp by having a hand-inscribed urinal delivered to London fashion boutique SHOWstudio.com. The piece -- named Armitage Skanks after its industrial manufacturer -- bears a scatological message from Gaga outlining her relationship to Duchamp and the role of humor in her own career. Although some have reported that the .. read more...

Uncurated Art Show Hits Snag

July 14, 2010 The "Artomatic" collective of several hundred Washington-area artists will not be able to exhibit together before 2011 at the earliest because, so far, no space large enough to contain their work has been contracted. (Reported early negotiations with a local junior high school may or may not be progressing.) Given the uncurated, unjuried and unrestrained nature of the group's shows, critics have been prone to recollect Marcel Duchamp's early difficulties with (and .. read more...