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Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain"

d by the New York Armory Show in 1913, was widely considered decisively representative of Cubism, if not foundational for the whole of 20th-century modern art. But why it was foundational is instructive as well:

He was merely experimenting, seeing no virtue in making a habit of any one style. He was outside artistic tradition not only in shunning repetition but also in not attempting a prolific output or frequent exhibition of his work. . . . A widely held belief is that Duchamp introduced in [Nude] a dimension of irony, almost a mockery of painting itself, that was more than anyone could bear and that undermined his own belief in painting. The title alone was a joke that was resented. Even the Cubists did their best to flatter the eye, but Duchamp's only motive seemed to be provocation ("Duchamp").

What is relevant about Nude for this research is that its creation, presentation, and reception marked the beginning of a pattern to Duchamp's career that was nothing so much as a departure from pattern. Taken as a whole, Duchamp's output was consistent in its resistance to stylistic affiliation and categorization. To put it another way, having conquered one artistic convention, Duchamp would move on to another. Indeed, having conquered one artistic medium, such as painting, Duchamp would move on to another. Hence the emergence of the media of the readymade, the name Duchamp gave to everyday objects that were designated as art.

It was in 1913, the year of the Armory Show, the year, one could say, that Duchamp was valorized as perhaps the leading painter of the Euro-American avant-garde, that he abandoned "all conventional forms of painting and drawing" (Cabanne 114). That year, Duchamp's readymade, eponymously named Bicycle Wheel, became the first of his "infrequent special selection and mounting of commonplace objects" (Cabanne 115). In 1915, Duchamp relocated from France to the US, declaring that he had not come to New York but ha...

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Marcel Duchamp's "Fountain". (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 14:57, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1683129.html