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New Smithsonian exhibit shows Marcel Duchamp’s influence on Warhol, Jasper Johns
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Why has America’s National Portrait Gallery opened a major exhibit focusing on a French artist, Marcel Duchamp, who wasn't really known for his portraits?Duchamp, one of the 20th century’s most influential artists, is known mostly for his "Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2)" which scandalized the 1913 Armory Show in New York City. He's famed also as "Dada's Daddy", the spiritual leader of the Dada movement.
But why portraits? Because Duchamp revolutionized portraiture. And he greatly influenced artists including Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, among other key 20th and 21st century artists whose works are included in “Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture” (March 27-August 2, 2009).
And quelle surprise – Duchamp was an American. He became an American citizen, and lived in the U.S. for many years of his intriguing life (1887-1968).
Duchamp “profoundly changed the concept of what
Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Sélavy. Photo by Man Raydefines both art and
Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Sélavy. Photo by Man Ray
portraiture,” summed up Martin Sullivan, Director of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery (NPG).
"Inventing Marcel Duchamp” is the first exhibition focusing on him as a master of self-invention, whose challenges to the concept of identity have made a lasting impact. For the first time ever, the exhibition brings together more than one hundred of his self-portraits and portraits of him by others, dating from 1911 to 2007.
Many portraits of this strikingly handsome man -- and his female persona Rrose Sélavy, mon dieu -- are by legendary photographers including his friend Man Ray, Edward Steichen, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Irving Penn, and Richard Avedon.
“Duchamp was a master of self-invention. He relished the opportunity to re-invent himself, and did so frequently,” said Anne Collins Goodyear, NPG’s assistant curator of prints and drawings and co-curator for the exhibition.
Co-curator James W. McManus, Professor of Art and Art History at California State University, Chico, put it like this, “He had multiple identities and they were elastic.” And Duchamp himself once quipped, “Call it a little game between ‘I’ and ‘me.’”
Ever the game-player and provocateur, Duchamp used the first of his many pseudonyms, R. Mutt, on “Fountain”, an actual urinal he famously and unsuccessfully submitted to an art exhibition in 1917. A few representations of the urinal, uh, "Fountain", are in the NPG exhibit.
Duchamp's most famous pseudonym and alter-ego was Rrose Sélavy (a pun translating loosely as “Eros is life”, and the last name sounding like “C’est la vie”). Duchamp donned full makeup, a chic chapeau, fur-trimmed coat, and posed for three photographic portraits (see above) by his pal Man Ray in 1921.
“People always ask whether Duchamp dressed up in drag and went out in public like that – Never,” stated McManus who has studied Marcel/Rrose/Mutt/etc. for 40 years.
Duchamp made a rather fetching female, with the help of obvious retouching in the Man Ray pic. Other Man Ray photographs here show the back of Duchamp’s head with a five-pointed star shaved into it, and also Duchamp slathered with shaving lather shaping his hair into devil's horns.
In 1923, Duchamp made a “Wanted: $2,000 Reward” poster of himself with two mug shots, casting himself as a criminal of many aliases including Rrose Sélavy, allegedly wanted for running an illegal gambling operation.
One of his most influential works, “'Wanted...' upends the traditional methods of presenting identity and portraiture…how are we to know who this person is?” commented Goodyear. “It’s his challenge to the notion of a single identity, and to the face as identity. “ The original no longer exists, but a replica is in the show, along with other artists' takes and take-offs on it.
And one of his most shocking works was his postcard defacing the world's most famous face and portrait, da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa”. Duchamp drew a moustache and goatee on Mona, and entitled it “L.H.O.O.Q”. It translates loosely in French as “She’s got a hot ass.“ Duchamp once said, “I put a moustache and a goatee on her face simply with the idea of desecrating it.”
Goodyear said, “He loved puns. And these ideas spread like wildfire because they’re hilarious.”
Graffiti on da Vinci, urinal as art, no wonder "Life" annointed him "Dada's Daddy".
Duchamp made miniature replicas of many of these signature works and placed them in bôites, characterized as "visual autobiographies encapsulated in boxes". His most famous of the 24 boxes, “Bôite – Series D”, Bôite-en-Valise" and Bôite Verte" or “The Green Box” are replicated at NPG.
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Duchamp himself was only the first artist of many artists who have “ingested, digested, and regurgitated Marcel Duchamp," as McManus described it.
Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns were the two artists most inspired by Duchamp. A highlight of the exhibition is Warhol’s "Screen Test" film of him, which the young Warhol made by crashing a 1966 party in Duchamp’s honor.
Duchamp said later, "I like Warhol's spirit. He's not just some painter or movie maker." The film captures Duchamp's impish smile and appeal even as he approached his 80th year. He said that "a very cuddly little actress (was) practically lying on top of me, rubbing herself up against me" during the film.
One of several Jasper Johns' works in the exhibit is a collage and pencil
Douglas Gordon's "Proposition for a Posthumous Portrait" of Duchamp
sketch of Duchamp's famed profile, entitled simply with his initials "M.D."
Carlo Maria Mariani painted Duchamp as Sélavy, but added touches of Mona Lisa, da Vinci, and other visual puns. When one viewer LOL, both curators said, “You got it!” Brian O'Doherty, a doctor-turned-artist made Duchamp's heartbeat a work of art -- a 16-piece "Portrait of Marcel Duchamp: Mounted Cardiogram 4/4/66".
Still wondering how Duchamp has inspired so many artists, for almost a century? Due to Duchamp, "it was no longer possible to be an artist in the way that it was before,” the art scholar Roger Shattuck once wrote.
This extraordinary exhibition, which took five years to assemble, is exclusive to the National Portrait Gallery; it will not travel. If you can’t get to Washington, at least go to the National Portrait Gallery's website to see some of the artworks.
As Duchamp told an interviewer back in 1955: “You should wait for 50 . . . or a hundred years for your true public. That is the only public that interests me.” This exhibition takes him at his word. And you will be very interested.
For more info:
National Portrait Gallery, www.npg.si.edu, 202-633-8300, 8th and F Streets, NW. Directions, hours, programs related to the exhibition. Full catalogue with essays, “Inventing Marcel Duchamp: The Dynamics of Portraiture”, edited by Anne Collins Goodyear and James W. McManus (published by The MIT Press). The $49.95 book is for sale at the National Portrait Gallery's museum shop, 202-633-5450, or through The MIT Press.
More About:
Art ·
National Portrait Gallery ·
Jasper Johns ·
DC Art ·
Marcel Duchamp ·
Andy Warhol ·
Richard Avedon ·
Edward Steichen ·
Cartier-Bresson ·
Douglas Gordon ·
da Vinci ·
"Mona Lisa" ·
Brian O'Doherty
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