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New Media Representations

: Marcel DuchampMarcel Duchamp

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Enduring Understanding

Students will understand that…the use of ready-mades and

other media have created new approaches to art and expanded

its definition.

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Overarching- How did technological advances affect art?- What are the issues and concernssurrounding new media and itsrepresentational mechanisms?

Topical- Are readymades art? - What is the role of an artist when using readymades?

Essential Questions

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5W1H

HowPainting

SculptureReady-mades

WhyTo make non-retinal art

To ignore aesthetic tastes &sensibilities

WhatAvant-garde

Anti-art via satire

WhichCubism

Dadaism

WhereFranceAmerica

When1887 – 1968

Marcel Duchamp

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1880s Étienne-Jules Marey and chronophotography.

1878 Muybridge’s The Horse in Motion1888 Roundhay Garden Scene (world’s

1st motion picture).1908 Cubism.1914-18 World War I.1915-24 Dadaism.

When

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France• Dada and Surrealist movements originated

from France.

America

• Duchamp became a United States citizen in 1955.

Where

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Cubism• An art movement in the 20th century.• Pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.• The depiction of several perspectives in a single plane.• Cubist works like Picasso, focuses on reduction and contortion of

space in the painting and the dislocation of faces. The figures are posed in a tight, central composition.

Which

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WhichDadaism• Began during World War I.• Outrage against cruelty of the war and its

rationality.• A rejection against bourgeois capitalist.• Dadaists embraced chaos and irrationality.• Dada was the opposite of everything that art

stood for.

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What• Mechanics of movement.• Avant-garde• Art that pushes the boundaries of what is

accepted as the “norm”.• Anti-Art• Works that are delivered or exhibited in a

conventional context but pokes fun of serious art.

• Uses satirical or humorous content.

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Portrait of Chess Players, 1911Oil on canvas, 108 x 101 cm

Private Collection

2 chess players in multiple views. Players are shown in different views, showing the passage of time. Depicting the intangible.

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What• Duchamp attempted to depict motion by

superimposing successive images.

• It has the elements of both Cubist and Futurist styles.

• Possibly influenced by photography, Muybridge’s Woman Walking Downstairs, late 19th Century.

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Futurism• An art movement in the early 20th century.

• It is originated from Italy.

• Its founder was Filippo Tommaso Marinetti.

• The Futurist rejected the past and celebrated speed, technology, youth and violence, the car, machinery and industry.

• Those things that represent technological triumph of humanity over nature.

• They were also passionate nationalists, who believed in war as a necessity for the human spirit.

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Futurist art

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Unique Forms of Continuity in Space by Umberto Boccioni (Italian, 1882-

1916)

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Swifts: Paths of Movement + Dynamic Sequences by Giacomo Balla (Italian,

1871-1958)

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Woman walking downstairs, late 19th CPhotography

Influence of Eadweard Muybridge

Eadweard Muybridge

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Looking at the ‘nude’

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• Renaissance artists attempted to portray reality, showing the human body as it really was, rather than the stiffness and artificiality that had constituted medieval art.

• Female figures were often plump, (considered beautiful at that time) and males muscular.

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Classical themes, such as the lives and loves of the pagan gods and goddesses, became more and more popular.

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• Classical sculptures, typically of the Greek and Roman gods, were often nude and portrayed figures with athletic bodies.

• This same theme--physically fit nudes--is often portrayed in Renaissance painting and sculpture.

• Even religious figures are given the bodies of Greek Gods. A typical example is Michelangelo's statue of David, which is completely nude; yet presents as a very fit, athletic, muscular young man.

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Renaissance sculpture of the myth god Neptune, from Florence and Rome

19Nude Descending a Staircase, No.1, 1911Oil on cardboard on panel, 95.9 x 60.3 cm

Study for Nude Descending a Staircase.

Cubism, together with his knowledge of the

chronophotography of Etienne-Jules Marey and the

photographic sequences of Eadweard Muybridge, directly

affected Duchamp’s conception of this subject

matter.

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Nude Descending a Staircase (No. 2), 1912 by Marcel Duchamp. Oil on

canvas.

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This Artwork was the turning point in Duchamp’s artistic career. Why?

Duchamp submitted Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2 to the Salon des

Independants in Paris, but the hanging committee, dominated by Cubists,

including his brothers and a number of friends, objected to it and particularly to its title, inscribed directly on the canvas, which they thought too provocative and not in keeping with the more traditional

subjects they determined appropriate for serious Cubist painting. Duchamp

withdrew his submission, an event that became the turning-point in his artistic

career.

Why was this painting controversial?

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DUCHAMP’S READYMADES

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"an ordinary object elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist." – from

the Dictionary of Surrealism

What are ‘readymades’?

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Fountain, 1917Porcelain urinal, 23.5 x 18 x 60 cm

Private Collection

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What• He bought the Bedfordshire model urinal from J.L. Mott Ironworks.

• He signed it with a pseudonym R. Mutt.

• It was submitted as an act of provocation to the Society of Independent Artists.

• It was taken out of the 1917 exhibition.

• Duchamp resigned immediately from the board of members after that.

• A controversy ensued, questioning the work as art.

• Beatrice Wood (an American artist) defended- “Duchamp described his purpose with the piece as shifting the focus of art from physical craft to intellectual interpretation”.

• This intellectual interpretation soon became known as conceptual art.

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Look around the art room and source for things that you consider to be a work of art. You have 10 mins for this part.

In 60 sec present to your class to justify why you consider that your choice is a work of art.

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Imitationalism: Some critics favor the realistic presentation of the artwork. They feel that an artwork should imitate life; that it should appear real before it can be considered successful.

Formalism: Other critics think that composition is the most important factor in a work of art. This theory stresses the importance of the arrangements of the EOAD.

Emotionalism: Critics who support this theory are primarily concerned with the emotional content of the artwork. They require a strong sense of feelings, moods, or ideas to be communicated from the artwork to the viewer.

Instrumental: Critics supporting this theory think that art should lead to some religious, moral or political purpose.

Are there other criteria to consider? Craftsmanship, originality, historical importance, comparison to similar work. Can we use aesthetic theories to judge new media works?

Evaluate the artwork presented using the following aesthetic theories a guide.

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Bottle Rack/Egouttoir, 1914

Galvanized iron, 59 x 37 cm

Original lost, replicaPrivate Collection

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In Advance of the Broken Arm, 1915Snow shovel, wood and galvanized iron,

121.3 cmYale Center for British Art, USA

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Bicycle Wheel, 1915Ready-mades, Height 124 cm

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The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) 1915-23

Oil paint, varnish, lead foil, lead wire, and dust on two glass plates (cracked), each

mounted between 2 glass panels in a steel and wood frame,272.5 x 175.8 cm

Philadelphia Museum of Art

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L.H.O.O.Q. 1919 Oil on canvas, 20 x 12 cm

Mona Lisa, 1503 – 1506by Leonardo da Vinci

Oil on wood, 77 x 53 cmLouvre, Paris

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What• It is a cheap postcard reproduction of da Vinci’s

Mona Lisa.• Duchamp drew a moustache and a beard over it

in pencil.• It is called L.H.O.O.Q as a pun.• When the title is pronounced in French, it

sounds like “Elle a chaud al cul”, which is “She has heat in the arse” when translated.

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Background Symbolist painter Odilon Redon (see slides 26 & 27). He enjoyed using visual or verbal puns for cartoons. Fascination with transition, change, movement and distance. The concept of the 4th dimension. Chronophotography and cinematography (see slides 28 & 29).

Étienne-Jules Marey, a French scientist and chronophotographer (a precursor to cinematography).

Max Stirner and The Ego and Its Own (see slide 30).

Philosophy Attempt to mystify art. Show objects devoid of aesthetic interest but classified contextually

as art by putting it in a gallery. He could just pick one from the many interesting objects in the

world, and this act of choice is equivalent to creation.

Why

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DUCHAMP’S INFLUENCES

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Odilon Redon (1840-1916)

• A symbolist painter and printmaker.• He was born in Bordeaux Aquitaine

France.• His works are ambiguous and undefinable.• They are not “outwardly anti-academic but

quietly individual”.• Duchamp cited him as an early influence.

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Some of Redon’s works…

Spirit of the Forest, 1880by Odilon Redon

The Crying Spider, 1881by Odilon Redon

Cactus Man, 1881by Odilon Redon

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Chronophotography

Étienne-Jules Marey

Flying Pelican, c. 1882

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Chronophotography is a Victorian application of science (the study of movement), and art (photography). It is the technique precursor to cinematography.

The word is from the Greek chronos and photography, "pictures of time."

Chronophotography is divided into two separate processes: Motography (continuous exposure of the subject) and Strobophotography (intermittent exposure of the subject). Notable chronophotographers include Eadweard Muybridge, Etienne-Jules Marey, Ottomar Anschütz.

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Muybridge’s Horse In Motion

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Max Stirner (1806-1856)

• A German philosopher.• His main work- The Ego and Its Own, 1844.• It portrays the life of a human individual

dominated by authoritarian concepts. • These concepts are primarily religion and

ideology and the institutions that claim authority over the individual.

• Stirner wrote in the book that these concepts must be “shaken and undermined” in order to able to act freely.

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HowPainting• Juxtaposition of different static views of subject

matter over time, like the descending nude series.

Ready-mades• Using custom or manufactured ready-mades.• Kinetic - some of his ready-mades are able to

move.

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Referenceshttp://www.dada-companion.com/duchamp/readymades_catalogue.php

http://www.understandingduchamp.com/