Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp (July 28, 1887 – October 2, 1968) was an influential French/American artist. He was arguably the most important influence on the development of post-war art in Europe and North America, in particular Pop Art and Conceptual Art.

Found Objects

Duchamp was one of the first artists to use found objects, readymades, as the basis for his artworks. His work Fountain consisted mostly of a ceramic urinal. His work In advance of a broken arm consisted of an old snow shovel. Another displayed a bicycle wheel.

Related Topics:
Found object - Fountain - Urinal - Bicycle wheel

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Research published in 1997 by art historian Rhonda Roland Shearer indicates that Duchamp's supposedly 'found' objects may actually have been created by Duchamp. Exhaustive research of items like snow shovels and bottle racks in use at the time has failed to turn up any identical matches. The urinal, upon close inspection, is non-functional. (However, there are accounts of Walter Arensberg and Joseph Stella being with Duchamp when he purchased the original Fountain at J. L. Mott Iron Works.) The artwork "L.H.O.O.Q." which is supposedly a poster-copy of the Mona Lisa with a mustache drawn on it, turns out to be not the true Mona Lisa, but Duchamp's own slightly-different version that he modelled partly after himself. If Shearer's findings are correct then Duchamp was creating an even larger joke than he admitted. http://www.duchamp.org/ImpossibleBed/PartI/

Related Topics:
Rhonda Roland Shearer - Walter Arensberg - Joseph Stella

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