Toilet Humour Or Art?

We could have just ignored it, or laughed it off. But no, the contemporary art world had to tie itself in knots over Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain”, which was submitted to the Society of Independent Artists first exhibition in New York in 1917. Fountain is one of a series of “readymades” produced by Duchamp at the time.  

Duchamp later recalled that the idea for Fountain arose from a discussion with the collector Walter Arensberg and the artist Joseph Stella. He purchased a urinal from a sanitary ware supplier and submitted it – or arranged for it to be submitted to the exhibition. The Society was bound by its constitution to accept all submissions, but it made an exception to Fountain. It was excluded from the exhibition and Arensberg and Duchamp resigned from the Society in protest.

‘Fountain’, 1917

The decision of the Society seemed to run contrary to its advertised ethos of “no jury – no prizes”. Duchamp had moved from Paris to New York in 1915, and with his friends Henri-Pierre Roche and Beatrice Wood wanted to assert the independence of art in America.  

In its article, The Tate makes reference to Duchamp’s painting “Nude Descending A Staircase No.2” being withdrawn from the Salon des Indépendants in Paris in 1912. Duchamp apparently saw this as an extraordinary betrayal and described it as a turning point in his life. Thus, the submission of Fountain could be seen as an experiment by Duchamp in testing the commitment of the new American Society to the principals of freedom of expression and its tolerance of new conceptions of art.

‘Nude Descending A Staircase No.2’, 1912

So, what are we to make of Fountain? Was it part of Duchamp’s stated objective that anything can be a work of art if the artist says so? According to the Tate, the original is lost which begs the question why bother producing replicas of it and why is it considered one of the icons of twentieth century art? Artist Matthew Collings ask the question is Duchamp’s readymades all part of a ‘no skill is needed joke’? 

“It was really trying to kill the artist as a God by himself” - Duchamp, commenting on Fountain. He was keen to remove the artist from the pedestal that he created for himself. Collings describes Fountain as the measure of all irony, now preserved at the Pompidou Centre in Paris – although copies can be found everywhere including any hardware store, come to think if it. Yet when I visit the sanitary section, I never think of Duchamp. Why? 

“My idea was to choose an object that wouldn’t attract me either by its beauty or its ugliness, to find a point of indifference in my looking at it” - Duchamp commenting on his readymades. Collings sees Duchamp’s art as the first stirrings of avant-gardism in the 20th century, an avant-gardism that was not concerned with pursuing quality in art, but instead of quality. Collings believes Duchamp is responsible for the fact that no one really knows what quality is in modern art.

‘Bicycle Wheel’ - one of Duchamp’s Readymades

Duchamp’s first criteria for the art he produced was that it should amuse him, but then he thought it shouldn’t be what everyone else thinks art should be about – that is; the skill of the artist’s hand. He thought there should be something more – the artist’s mind was just as important as the artist’s hand. 

In the 1960’s, just before he died, he was asked why when he wanted to destroy art, his readymades now seem so aesthetic and so part of art, he replied “well no one is perfect”. It’s argued that Duchamp opened the door to freedom in modern art, to feel free to do your own thing. Yet, Collings argues that Duchamp’s readymades are a devastating one-liner that has us questioning if we’ve reached the end of art. “Where can you go after that?” he asks. Duchamp’s answer was to play chess for many years. 

Collings asks if Duchamp’s readymades are the sickly green light of cultures’ last meltdown. I like Collings’ description of Fountain being the asteroid of irony hurtling through artspace, a symbol of culture nowadays being empty and frivolous in the eyes of many. But he acknowledges the seriousness in Duchamp’s art too. 

But Duchamp never gave up entirely on art, he just produced it secretively. An earlier blog of mine “The Woman Who Conquered Marcel Duchamp” discusses this.  

References; 

Tate.org.au 

‘This is Modern Art’, BBC Channel 4, 1999 presented by Matthew Collings 

The Woman Who Conquered Marcel Duchamp

In the final 20 years of his life, Marcel Duchamp secretly carried out work on an installation piece that none of his friends were aware of at all.  Quite an achievement for one of the 20th Century’s most famous artists. He gave explicit instructions that it was not to be displayed to the public until after his death which was in 1968, and the work had puzzled and intrigued friends and art critics alike for more than 30 years since.  It had been assumed that Duchamp had given up producing art decades before – but not so.

Marcel Duchamp, ‘Etant Donnes’ (Given), 1948-68, mixed media

The personal drama that inspired this masterpiece is as fascinating as the piece itself.  Born in 1887, Duchamp was a French painter, sculptor, chess player and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, conceptualism, whatever took his fancy at the time.  Early in his career he experimented with various painting styles which he later referred to as his swimming lessons.  Having become proficient in a particular style, he got bored with it and moved on to the next.  The final painting during this restless period was the now famous Nude Descending A Staircase which was regarded by Cubists of the period as an affront to their genre.

Marcel Duchamp, ‘Nude Descending A Staircase’, 1912 oil on canvas, 147 cm x 89 cm

As a consequence, Duchamp removed himself from the Cubist coterie and never worked within a group again.  He said he was never comfortable being in a group because he always wanted to make a personal contribution.

He then decided to subvert centuries of art history with his readymades, everyday objects which he turned into art simply by adding his signature.  The most notorious being a urinal he submitted to an exhibition in 1917.   He once said he didn’t care for the word “art”, it’s been so discredited. And after being reminded that he had contributed to this discrediting himself, he agreed but also referred to the ‘unnecessary adoration’ of art today.  “But this is hard for me because I have been in it all my life and yet I want to get rid of it”.  A conflicted individual, perhaps?

One of his more perplexing works was “Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even” or “Large Glass” which was thought to reflect his inability to combine sexual and emotional involvement.  It is an etching in glass which he worked on for 8 years from 1915.

Marcel Duchamp, ‘Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even”

The top glass is thought to contain the bride whilst below her are nine bachelors seeking to be united with her but are locked in an endless cycle of frustration.  The remarkable American artist Beatrice Wood (1892 – 1998) fell in love with Duchamp in 1916, but found him perplexing and emotionally detached.  He was regarded by his friends as the king of the bachelors, but then along came Maria Martins.

Martins was the wife of the Brazilian ambassador to the United States.  They arrived in New York in 1939.  Early in her life in Brazil it was thought that she would become a professional musician, instead she became a very accomplished sculptor. After her first marriage ended she moved to France where she met and then married the diplomat Carlos Martins Pereira e Souza, and through his various postings, she learnt a variety of styles from woodcarving, ceramics to bronze carving  which would become her medium of choice.

Maria Martins, ‘The Impossible’ 1946, Bronze

Not long after arriving in New York she fell in with a group of surrealist exiles which included André Breton, Max Ernst, André Masson and inevitably Marcel Duchamp.  The surrealists had an impact on her work which became more complex, organic and plant like but still drew on Amazonian folklore.  The female figure was always central to her work.

Maria Martins, ‘However II’ 1948, Bronze

Martins began her passionate affair with Duchamp in 1946.  Her daughter, Nora Martins Lobo thought it was extraordinary that they could get involved given that they were so different – he, a cold, withdrawn intellectual and she a passionate person who loved and hated violently.  At this time her life alternated between the diplomatic circle in Washington and a more bohemian life in New York.  He was fascinated by her and she found him a challenge and according to her daughter, Maria loved challenges.

Duchamp’s biographer, Calvin Tomkins, believes this relationship opened him up emotionally in ways that had never happened before.  He was unable to maintain the emotional detachment that had characterised so much of his life.  In 1947 Duchamp produced an erotic sketch of her that confirms Maria was the model for the Etant Donnes.

During their 2 year affair Duchamp encouraged Maria’s development as a sculptor, spending many hours in her studio and helping to organise exhibitions of her work.  But in 1948, her husband was posted overseas – and off she went.  This left Duchamp devastated and he wrote a series of despairing letters begging her to return whilst working on the Etant Donnes.

In an interview, Nora Martins Lobo draws attention to the sculpture ‘However II’ (above) and how the figure has her feet firmly on the ground – and that was her mother.  She knew she had to stop flying and come back to earth.  Maria and Duchamp met briefly in 1951 and he resigned himself to the fact that it was over.  “I feel happy when I think of you”, he wrote.

Duchamp was briefly married in 1927, but in 1954 he married Alexina Matisse (Teeny), daughter in-law of Henri.  They had a happy marriage and she helped him construct the Etant Donnes.  Late in the development, he changed the colour of the hair in the model to match Teeny’s, not Maria’s. In accordance with his wishes, the Etant Donnes was installed in a room next to the Large Glass at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  Initially the public is confronted by a large wooden door that Duchamp found in Spain and had transported back to New York.  Through 2 peep holes, the viewer can see a body moulded in plaster and pig skin sprawled out on grass and twigs (first image).

When it was revealed to the public, the work came as a shock to those who thought they knew him as it seemed a denial and contradiction of everything he stood for.

In 1966 a major retrospective of Duchamp’s work was being installed in London by artist Richard Hamilton.  Shortly before the exhibition opened a mysterious package arrived from Brazil which contained the picture below.  The sender was Maria Martins.  Hamilton spoke of taking Duchamp on an inspection of the show just before the opening and when they came to this picture, Duchamp seemed initially shocked and then clammed up, not wanting to talk about it.

Maria Martins died in 1973 at the age of 78 and spent her last few years holding occasional exhibitions before turning to writing essays on poetry.

Maria Martins, ‘Night Chant’ 1968, (her last sculpture), gold bronze

References;

The Secret of Marcel Duchamp – BBC/RM Arts, 1997

www.awarewomenartists.com