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.

Mockery of Art

Marcel Duchamp took aim at conventional notions of "high art," "culture" and commodities by presenting mass-produced objects such as a bottle rack or a snow shovel as sculpture. He coupled his visual assaults on "art" with verbal puns: he signed his Fountain, "R. Mutt," or "armut," German for poverty, and named a Mona Lisa defaced by a drawn-on goatee beard and moustache L.H.O.O.Q., a coarse French pun (When pronounced in French, "elle a chaud au cul", it means "She's got a hot ass"). When his Fountain was rejected as not being art, for the unjuried 1917 Independents exhibition in New York, Beatrice Wood defended him: "The only works of art America has given are her plumbing and her bridges."

Related Topics:
Sculpture - Mona Lisa - Beatrice Wood

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