Reinventing the Wheels

May 27, 2010 As the curator of a new show at Princeton's Paul Robeson Center of Art points out, sometimes progress is really a matter of circling back around to the origin, only to see the place for the first time. In other words, history can be all about reinventing the wheel. The show, which runs through July 2, takes a new spin on Marcel Duchamp's "assisted readymades" by placing the iconic mounted Bicycle Wheel in a new and mobile context. Can it be spun, and if so, will it.. read more...

Readymade or Relic: The Economics of Fine Art

May 26, 2010

When collectors pay $10 million, $100 million or more for a numinous Picasso, Giacometti or Van Gogh, what are they buying? What value does the artist add through labor, vision, experience and, ultimately, signature? Why do objects with a peripheral or disputed association with a bankable body of work take on something of the aura of medieval relics?

Who was R. Mutt?

 

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Christian Boltanski and the Persistence of Duchamp

May 25, 2010 Recent critical reception of conceptual artist Christian Boltanski's work (such as No Man's Land, in which menswear is sifted endlessly) has struggled to invoke the legacy of Marcel Duchamp as patron of the "big questions" about the function of art, or at very least the instigator of the little gestures of art-as-provocation. Boltanski himself appears more conflicted in his relationship to the readymade master, having deliberately erased the portions of his collect.. read more...

A Twisted Pair: Duchamp/Warhol

May 24, 2010 The Andy Warhol Museum is holding a special retrospective of the connections between Warhol and Duchamp; as the museum promises, "many Duchamp works" are on loan from the Moderna Musee in Stockholm, and new archival material should generate new insights into how Warhol viewed Duchamp and how their works -- now enshrined on opposite ends of Pennsylvania -- inform each other. (Through September 5;  www.warhol.org.)  .. read more...

The Tzanck Check, Duchamp Bonds and Other ‘Art Currencies’

May 21, 2010

The line between art and seigniorage, creation and currency fascinated Duchamp and was the focus of several minor works — notably the Monte Carlo bonds and the little-discussed Tzanck Check of 1919 — as well as major endeavors like the traveling salesman’s Box in a Valise and other readymade reproductions. A recent study of art currencies brings these marriages of concept and commerce into a larger historical context.

 

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Cincinnati Retrospective Highlights Cage and Others

May 20, 2010 A major exhibition of works from the Carl Solway Gallery's 48-year collection highlights the work of conceptual artists like Buckminster Fuller, Nam June Paik and especially John Cage. Solway, now 75, befriended Cage in the late 1960s and eventually published the composer's relatively little-known modular tribute to his own influences, Not Wanting To Say Anything About Marcel Duchamp. Some unsold inventory remains, Solway says. (Through July 30 in Cincinnati.)  .. read more...

Barbican Builds a Surreal House

May 19, 2010 Duchamp's latex breast beckons visitors to the Barbican's "Surreal House" exhibition this summer. In fact, the sculpture -- originally brought to bear as the cover to the 1947 "Surrealism in 1947" show catalog -- serves as the doorbell for a haunted structure designed by London architect firm Carmody Groarke. Once inside, fans of surrealism will be able to view works by Dalí, Bourgeois, Magritte and other giants of the movement as well as films by.. read more...

‘Readymade’ Washing Machine Offered at $5,000

May 18, 2010

Miami’s Spinello Gallery recently exhibited a fully functional washing machine and attached clothes line signed by local artist Lee Materazzi and titled "Mother." Although the artist hopes its $5,000 asking price will make it accessible to casual collectors, it has as yet found no buyers despite its obvious Duchampian aura.

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Stolen Fountain Chip on Display

May 17, 2010 A pair of Italian artists who spent two years pilfering fragments of various celebrated contemporary art objects are now exhibiting their collection of souvenirs under the heading "Stolen Pieces." Eva and Franco Mattes chipped, clipped and pried bits of works by Oldenburg, Beuys, Warhol, Koons and even Duchamp out of their museum settings and arranged them under glass. The pursuit of these trophies raises poignant questions about the curatorial impulse -- is the mu.. read more...