Anyone who has taken an introductory art history lesson knows Marcel Duchamp. Let me emphasize that again: everyone who encounters contemporary art in any form knows Duchamp, whether he realizes it or not.
In 1917, the French-born artist infamously turned a urinal upside down, signed it and called it art. As is often told, that one gesture forever changed the trajectory of aesthetic history. Art was no longer judged by skill, craftsmanship and even beauty; it could be anything an artist called art. That opened the door conceptual art, process art and much more. He is the reason that art today can be gloriously inventive, wonderfully indulgent, enigmatically experimental and beautifully opaque.
This Sunday, April 12, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) the first expanded United States opens in New York exhibition in more than 50 years about this fascinating artist — a craftsman, appropriator, deceiver, perhaps even, in modern parlance, troll.
Yesterday I spoke via Zoom with the Belgian critic and scientist Thierry de Duve, who has been thinking about these annoying contradictions in the artist’s work for half a century, from his bright apartment in Manhattan. De Duve edited it The definitively unfinished Marcel Duchamp (1993) and wrote Lace after Duchamp (1998), Pictorial Nominalism: about Marcel Duchamp’s transition from painting to readymade (2005), and many more books and articles, and yet sometimes claims not to be a Duchamp expert. Read our conversation below, lightly edited for clarity.
Hyperallergic: As a Duchamp expert, can you tell us why he fascinates you?
Thierry de Duve: I think, by normal standards, I am a Duchamp expert. But the interesting thing is that I thought I wasn’t Duchamp fan. I thought I was done with Duchamp. I thought I was bored with Duchamp. And I have to say that the show at MoMA has reignited my love.
Since the 1970s, when I discovered Duchamp in real life, I have always had mixed feelings about him. There’s something esoteric, deliberately mysterious about Duchamp that I don’t like. And many of his objects are, for me, stranded in a kind of 19th century Symbolist aesthetic.
But I am fascinated by this man’s extraordinary intellect, and also by his contradictions. For example, Duchamp, the inventor of readymades – the Duchamp I have explored most in my writings – and Duchamp, the craftsman.
The “Large Glass” is an incredibly well crafted object. I always found that contradiction interesting and pulled me in opposite directions – ‘like’ and ‘dislike’ in a sense, but certainly arousing my intellectual curiosity.
H: So you probably liked the painting part of the show?
TD: Oh no. The painting part of the show is the weakest part of the show. But it’s very interesting. That is why I say that Duchamp is not the greatest artist of the century, but perhaps the most intelligent artist of the century.
One of the things that the paintings at the beginning of the exhibition show is that he was not a very good painter. Matisse and Picasso, to name two of his contemporaries, are certainly much greater painters than Duchamp. But Duchamp had the intelligence early on to understand that this was not the case. He turned into something else and became a great artist, despite not being a great painter. That’s part of what makes him so fascinating today, as we live in a so-called post-medium age.
H: Do you think his work is more interesting in this so-called ‘post-medium era’? Or do you feel like he simply sowed the seeds for this era?
TD: That would be too long an answer. That is the subject of my entire book, Duchamp’s Telegram. “Post-medium art” is not my expression. My expression is the ‘art-in-general’ system. And my contention is that he is not the creator, not the author – and not even the agent – of the transition from the old system to the new art-in-general system, the ‘old’ system being the system of the fine arts. He is merely the messenger of a passage that takes place even before his birth.
The art world changed – not in the 1860s, but in the 1880s. And Duchamp’s “Fountain” is the message that brings us the news. The news that we no longer live in an art world where to be an artist you have to be a painter or a sculptor, or a poet, or a composer, or a playwright, or a novelist, you name it.
That is what the term ‘post-medium art’ refers to. That’s where I disagree with the name, because it suggests that you can’t be an artist if you’re in a medium. And as we know from the contemporary art world, there is still painting, and to a large extent there is still sculpture. And there are new categories, such as readymades. Without Duchamp we probably wouldn’t have that category.
Installation art, performance art – these are new categories, new media. But we can also make things that don’t have a name yet. It will be difficult after Duchamp, but it is still possible.
H: How did “Fountain” break the news that you didn’t have to work in a specific medium to become an artist?
TD: “Fountain” was to be exhibited at the first exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in New York in 1917. That society was modeled on the Société des Artistes Indépendants in France, which was founded in 1884, and the statutes of the French Society and the American Society are identical.
The novelty of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in France was that there was no jury. Why is that important? Because in France in the 19th century you could not make a living as an artist if you had not exhibited in the salon. The gallery system, the dealer system – it was minimal. The rare galleries that were there wouldn’t select you unless you had success in the salon, you see?
So creating a non-juried exhibition and a society of artists essentially amounts to creating a society of self-proclaimed artists. That was the novelty.
To cut a long story short, the Beaux Arts system, France’s version of the fine arts system, collapsed at the end of the 19th century – in 1880, in fact. And Duchamp brings us that news – that you can be an artist without being a painter, a poet or a musician, etc. That’s my interpretation of what ‘Fountain’ encapsulates.
He mailed that message in 1917, but the message did not arrive until 1960. I mean, Rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham, John Cage – they got the message around 1950, but they were fast. The bulk of the artists who received it arrived in the next generation. The generations of pop artists, conceptual artists, minimalist artists, Fluxus artists, Arte Povera artists, etc., etc., that emerged in the 1960s.
And that is why we have been talking about a ‘post-Duchamp’ art world since the 1960s. We are not talking about a ‘post-Picasso world’.
H: At the press preview, one of the curators said that Duchamp had a very good idea of museums and curators. What was his relationship with museums like?
TD: Museums are an invention of the 18th century. The idea of the museum goes hand in hand with the idea that art belongs to the people. Not physically, economically, financially, but ideologically, culturally. The idea that museums should be public repositories for art.
Ever since the 19th century, ambitious artists knew that if they wanted to be successful, their art would end up in the museum. And from that moment on: “What kind of museum do you want to be in?” becomes an interesting question for every artist.
I will not go into a long explanation of the criticism of the institutional nature of museums. But suffice it to say that Duchamp knew that if he became successful, his art would be in a museum.
Now, interestingly enough, he had to wait until he was 75 before he got a museum review. His first was in 1963, at the Pasadena Art Museum. But this is Duchamp’s typical genius. He anticipated the museum by creating his own museum: a portable museum in the 1940s. That is “La Boîte-en-valise” [“Box-in-a-suitcase” (1931–71)].
I think one of the great things about this exhibition at MoMA is the fact that they have, I think, seven of them boîtes-en-valisenot just one. They show that – how should I put this – the fetishization of art, which is an inevitable by-product of the existence of museums, was anticipated and played with in advance by Duchamp. I think he anticipated the logic of the museum. He played with the logic of the museum and created a miniature version of how his collection would be displayed in a museum. So in a sense it is only natural that the curators of this show would show not one, but several, in honor of that gesture.
I think Duchamp is playing with that fetishization, and if we were to continue that conversation, we would have to reconsider what we mean by “fetishization.” And whether a fetish can at the same time be an antidote to a fetish, just as a vaccine is the antidote to the disease. By injecting the disease, you cause a reaction in the body. I think Duchamp – and not just Duchamp, but many modern artists – are putting the vaccine strategy into practice.
The variations [in the same artwork] strengthening the connection between aesthetics and fetishization. Whether it is in a critical way or not, I prefer to leave it open. And whether we should think about it in a critical way or not, I prefer to leave it open.
H: If you could ask Duchamp one thing, what would it be?
TD: I would ask him if he was aware of what he was doing with the urinal or not.
