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RESPONSES TO MARCEL DUCHAMP:
AN EXAMINATION OF SHIFTING INTERPRETATIONS
IN THE CRITICAL APPROACHES TO ART

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MSU Is An Affirmative AetlorVEquel Opportunity Institution

RESPONSES TO MARCEL DUCHAMP:
AN EXAMINATION OF SHIFTING INTERPRETATIONS
IN THE CRITICAL APPROACHES TO ART

BY

Cynthia Lee Henthorn

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of Art History

1989

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ABSTRACT

RESPONSES TO MARCEL DUCHAMP:
AN EXAMINATION OF SHIFTING INTERPRETATIONS
IN THE CRITICAL APPROACHES TO ART

BY

Cynthia Lee Henthorn

The discovery of Marcel Duchamp's Etant Donnés in

 

1969 functions as a crossroads in the twentiety-century
between two distinct trends in the historical and
critical approaches to art. The responses to Duchamp

in the years before and after Etant Donnés‘ discovery

 

reflect not only the changing attitudes toward
Duchamp's role in the twentieth-century, but also the
shifting ideologies in the discipline of art history.
An examination of Duchamp criticism from the mid-1940's
to the late 1980's provides a means of uncovering the
patterns of approaches to art and; ultimately, reveals
how changes in the direction of twentieth-century art

are related to changes in its critical responses.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Katherine Sydney Dutton

Phylis Floyd
Eldon VanLiere
Susan Madigan

Paul Deussen

James and Carol Henthorn

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

RESPONSE TO DUCHAMP IN THE PRE-ETANT DONNES

I. Duchamp Within the Avant-Garde
Circle in America . . . . . . . . .

II. Duchamp as Hero . . . . . . . . . .

III. Duchamp as Model. . . . . . . . . .

THE IMPACT OF ETANT DONNES. . . . . . . . .
I. Originality . . . . . . . . . . . .

II. Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
III. Non-traditional Media . . . . . . .
IV. Duchampian Strategies . . . . . . .

V. The Criticism of Art History. . . .

CONCLUSION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

END NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

BIBLIOGRAPHY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

GENERAL REFERENCES. . . . . . . . . . . . .

ii

10

12

24

27

32

4O

43

47

58

66

71

94

INTRODUCTION

The year 1969 warrants our attention in an
examination of art criticism for it earmarks a
phenomenal event that influenced the course~ of art
history and the attitudes toward the ways art is
approached, interpreted and perceived. This event was

the discovery of Etant Donnés, the enigmatic work that

 

occupied Marcel Duchamp's private hours for at least
twenty years. Upon its completion in 1966, it sat in
secret, silently waiting to burst into the historical
passages of art like a well-timed phrase.

The revelation of Etant Donnés in 1969 functions

 

as a turning point, a fulcrum in history, between two
diverse directions in the historical and critical
approaches to art within the twentieth-century.
Criticism of Duchamp's art before and after EEEEE
Donnés reveals the changes in attitude toward Duchamp's
role in art history and, ultimately, demonstrates how

the discovery of Etant Donnés in an atmosphere charged

 

with critical inquiry, and the resulting responses,
manifested a new wave in the art world's critical
approaches to art.

The pursuit of such a study retrospectively
examines the ideological paths followed by_critics from
1945 t3) the present. It provides an assessment of the
turning points in the critical climate of these decades

and the results of these changes as they are reflected

in the critical responses to art. Since Duchamp played
such a prominent role in the development of twentieth-
century art and art criticism, the critical attitudes
toward him are used, for the purpose of this study, as
a means of uncovering the patterns of critical
ideologies. His relationship to the development of
these disciplines demonstrates not only the degree to
which Duchamp's history is entwined with that of
twentieth-century art, but also the extent to which the
issues or concerns found in art are tied with those in
art criticism.

Within the literature of a given era there can be
found not only the attitudes toward the place of an
artist in art's history, but also the attitudes toward
the ways art and its history should be approached,
perceived and interpreted. The pre and post-E5355
Donnés eras carry their baggage of biases like any
other and these can be ascertained by the manner in
which representative scholars of each time regard
Duchamp and his role in twentieth-century art. For the
purpose of this study, these attitudes toward Duchamp,
as revealed in the literature of the time, will be
grouped according t1) a common denominator in theme or
approach shared by various scholars. The critical
responses found in these groups represents the ideo-

logical context of each era and ultimately provides a

contrast between the two, demonstrating the changes in

attitude which resulted at the time of Etant Donnés‘

 

discovery.

RESPONSE TO DUCHAMP IN THE PRE-ETANT DONNES ERA

 

Since the primary reason for surveying the charac-
teristics of the literature of these two eras is to
reveal the changes in critical attitudes that are

reflected by the discovery of Etant Donnés, following

 

the literature 'in a general, ‘chronological Scheme
becomes necessary in order to illuminate the depth of
these changes.

The first body of criticism to be examined encom-

passes the pre-Etant Donnés literature of the mid

 

1940's through the 1950's. During this period, Duchamp
was perceived as a member of the transplanted European
avant-garde, and was awarded a place in its continuing
lineage in America. During the post—war years, Duchamp
began to receive a substantial amount of critical
attention in this country. The majority of exhibitions
and articles of the period establish his aesthetic or
ideological relationship to other members of the avant-
garde as scholars traced the history of the avant-garde
from its origins in Europe to its new cultural home in
America. Criticism reflecting this perspective tends
to generalize his importance as part of the
evolutionary development of twentieth-century art.
This response differs from the heroic conception of
Duchamp which dominated the criticism of the late

1950's and continued through the early 1960's. Under

this second section, Duchamp is perceived-as a major
figure in the development of twentieth-century art.
His status within the avant-garde becomes augmented as
scholars later identify him as the source of all major
art movements in this century. Critical approaches are
altered again in the mid-sixties. In this atmosphere,
challenges to the old modes of perception and inter-
pretation regarding art begin to surface. Already
established as a major influence on the art of this
century, and especially on the younger generation,
Duchamp is turned to as an authority to support or
explain an issue concerning the contemporary art scene.
This final section covers the criticism written prior

to the discovery of Etant Donnés upon Duchamp's death

 

on October 2, 1968.

I. Duchamp Within The Avant-Garde Circle in America

 

From the mid 1940's and throughout the 1950's,
scholars perceived Duchamp as a member of the European
avant-garde, who, upon escaping from war-torn Europe,
had been transplanted in New York. The literary
documents of this time identify Duchamp with this group
and part of the continuing modern tradition which found
its roots in Europe, but reconvened its unfolding

history in America.

Lacking the equivalent of Europe's artistic
traditions, America adopted the dislocated European
avant-garde and thus was able to establish a modern art
identity for itself by formulating an American avant-
garde based on the EurOpean presence. These documents
reveal scholars' concern to examine America's EurOpean
artistic lineage through the numerous retrospective
articles and exhibitions.

By displaying the history of the avant-garde,
these retrospectives demonstrate America's desire to
see in pmysical terms the progression of the European
avant-garde that culminated in America after WWII and
established this country as the center for the
subsequent development of the avant—garde. The retro-
spective study of the avant—garde provided America with
a means of displaying its adOpted cultural wealth and
asserting itself as a legitimate cultural leader.

The Museum of Modern Art Bulletin of 1946

 

furnishes a retrospective examination of the
avant-garde in! documenting the European presence in
America during WWII. James Johnson Sweeney, then
director of the Museum of Modern Art, describes the
bulletin as a "first hand" document of a "brief
compilation of records and informal interviews" of

"many leading artists of our time."1 Duchamp, as a

member in this pantheon of heroes, is awarded a place
in Sweeney's quintessential catalogue.

The 1945 exhibition at Yale University also
demonstrates. a retrospective study of Duchamp's
activity as a member of the avant-garde. The attention
is divided among the three Duchamp brothers. George
Heard Hamilton associates the three brothers with the
avant-garde by demonstrating how they break with French
academic tradition. This ability to thwart established
tradition is the common denominator that links the
members of the avant-garde together and maintains their
lineage. It is this tradition of breaking with
tradition that some critics and historians define as
the avant-garde:

Whosoever failed to account for Duchamp's

'readymades' could not be held accountable

for an understanding of a 'fine art', the

elements of which were also objects in ,a

dimensional world. Duchamp, the 'anti-

artist', had achieved a crushing victory over
rational materialism. The Philistine, who in

the nineteenth century had despised the work

of such sensitive craftsman as Renoir and

Whistler, holding it impractical and unrea-

sonable, ix: the twentieth century discovered

to his chagrin that practicality and reason

are ever at the mercy of the selective

imagination.

Over the next decade, a number of exhibitions were
mounted that placed Duchamp in the historical context

of the European avant-garde. These group shows demon-

strated through their historical overview, Duchamp's

place among the avant-garde by highlighting his
association with Cubism, Dada and the Armory Show. For
example, in 1952 the Rose Fried Gallery (New York City)
sponsored a family' exhibition. of the three Duchamp
brothers, along with their sister Suzanne.3 A second
family review occurred in 1957 at the Guggenheim4 and
in 1953 the Rose Fried Gallery sponsored an exhibition
of Duchamp and Picabia that provided an historical
overview* of each artists' contribution to the
development of the avant-garde.5 Lastly, an exhibition
at Janis was mounted in 1959 which displayed several
pieces of Duchamp "memorabilia".6

George Heard Hamilton, 5J1 his 1952 article "John
Covert: Early American Modern", reaffirms the American
interest in uncovering the ties between the New York
avant-garde and its European heritage:

The recent retrospective exhibition of

American abstract painting at the Museum of

Modern Art served two purposes. Not only has

it proved that non-representational painting

has for more than a generation absorbed an

impressive number of the ablest American

talents, but it has also spurred inquiry into

the origins of the abstract movement in this

country.

Hamilton also cites various early twentieth-
century American artists such as Man Ray, John Covert,
Marius de Zaya and Morton Schamburg who owe a debt to

Duchamp as an influential source. By' highlighting

these relationships between the inspired and inspirer,

Hamilton demonstrates Duchamp's encouragement of the
growth of America's modern art, a role which was
perceived as contributing to the continuation of the
.avant—garde tradition in America.

A 1952 profile of Duchamp reiterates this
perception of him by tracing his participation in
activities that established America as the cultural hub
of the avant-garde.8 The article provides biographical
data on Duchamp and emphasizes his involvement in the
1913 Armory Show, his formation of New York Dada with
Man Ray and Picabia in 1917, and the founding of the
Societe Anonyme in New York (along with Katherine
Drier) in 1920. In this latter activity, he assisted
in "an international art collecting and exhibiting
organization devoted to 'the promotion of the study in

"9 The collection

America of the Progressive in Art'.
was given to the Yale University in 1949, providing the
avant-garde with anu even firmer anchor in America and
the proliferation of modern art scholarship in that
country as well.

Retrospective exhibitions and group shows of
members of the avant-garde provided America with a
means of displaying and examining the wealth of its
European artistic heritage. In so doing, scholars were

able to trace the development of the avant-garde

through such members as Duchamp by exploring the

10

history of his contribution to the avant-garde and the
continuation of it in America. This critical approach
enabled scholars to determine the value of Duchamp to
the avant-garde's tradition. Upon realizing this value,
the opinion became unanimous that Duchamp was not only
a member in this on-going tradition, but that he loomed
as a major figure, influential to the course it took

and the direction in which it continued.

II. Duchamp as Hero

 

During the late 1950's and early 1960's, the
prevailing critical approach elevated Duchamp to a
supreme and heroic level within the avant-garde and
portrayed him as an instrumental force in the evolution
of twentieth-century art. The difference between this
approach in the art criticism of the late 1950's to
early 1960's and that of previous decades. is that
Duchamp is no longer perceived solely as a member of
the avant-garde, but rather he is aggrandized to the
stature of its leader. His influence can be traced
through all phases of twentieth-century art, therefore,
it is from him that twentieth-century art evolves.

Lawrence Steefel in his 1961 review of Richard

Hamilton's typographical version of the Green Box

 

acknowledges this elevated role of Duchamp and reveals

11

the attitude of this era to discover just how essential
Duchamp has been to the outcome of this century's art:

Duchamp, by himself, is a major artist as
well as being a symbol of defiance and
independence in the ambience of the
avant-garde. ‘His work involves transforma-
tions and develOpments of causes and ideas
which are pervasive andoessential elements of
the modern movement...

H. Wurdemann, in his 1963 review of Duchamp's
Pasadena retrospective, confirms Steefel's perception
of Duchamp's role in the avant-garde. Wurdemann
promotes Duchamp as a main current in the stream of
twentieth-century artistic issues and recognizes his
all-pervasive influence as the "godhead" of the
contemporary artists:

Though half a century has passed, the world
of Duchamp still encompasses the artists of
today. Like a radar...he pointed the way to
the mechanized psychic and philosophical
expressions of today...for many it is not
Picasso but Marcel Duchamp who is the great
revolutionary 13f twentieth-century' painting
and sculpture.

Under the heroizing light of Cleve Gray, Duchamp's
place within the avant-garde is pushed to the forefront
of all major art movements of the twentieth century:

...his achievements have been and will
undoubtedly continue to be the seminal
influences in this century's art. Single
works, indeed single actions within one work,
have already been the source of inspiration
for such artists as Matta, Johns, Tinguley,
Rauschenberl'g, the whole pop group and many,
many more.

12

Through the heroic promotion of Duchamp by critics
like Gray, Steefel and Wurdemann, an image of Duchamp
as the forefather of contemporary concerns becomes
established. This position of esteem lends Duchamp an
increasing authority' within modern art history. Not
only is he recognized as the leading hero of the avant-
garde, but is also the hero of the younger generation
and, due to his authority, becomes the hero for the

next era's challenge of accepted standards in art.

III. Duchamp as Model

 

Critics recognized that many parallels existed
between Duchamp and the art movements of the latter
half of the 1960's. This prompted critics to trace the
history of this "new" art back to Duchamp as its source
of origin and, indeed, they found that he was. The
many exhibitions of his works, which were displayed in
the 1950's, allowed younger artists to examine Duchamp
and assess his instrumental role in the development of
the avant-garde. This activity culminated as a
resurrection of Duchamp's ideas, re-interpreted through
the art of the younger generation.

Duchamp's presence in America as a member of the
European avant-garde and as a contributor to the
establishment cu? America's cultural integrity awarded

him a great deal of critical attention in the 1940's

l3

and 1950's as scholars traced the origins of America's
newly adopted modern art tradition.

Numerous retrospective and group exhibitions of
Duchamp were mounted during this time, providing the
art world with a physical document of Duchamp's
artistic activities and his ties to major movements of
the twentieth-century. As this type of exposure
increased and his popularity grew, critics realized
that Duchamp had played a seminal role in the course of
twentieth-century art.) I

In this respect, he was perceived as a heroic
leader and father figure in modern art history and was
elevated to the status of godhead. This position, as
well as his role as the source of inspiration for the
younger artists (including Morris, Kosuth and Le Witt),
awarded him an authority to which scholars of the mid-
sixties turned for a standard in their examination,
explanation and interpretation of dominant issues in
the current art scene, such as the reductive aesthetic
of the new art, its relationship to the machine, its
challenge to the traditional notions of originality,
perception and modern art's mythical history. Duchamp's
role as a standard in art criticism ushers in the final
grouping of the critical art literature of the

pre-Etant Donnés era.13

 

14

One of the prevailing issues concerning the
emerging new art movements of Minimalism and
Conceptualism was their challenge to the aesthetic
tradition of formal art. In so doing, this challenge
also denied the use of the traditional formal tools in
the interpretation of art.

Barbara Rose, in her 1965 article, "ABC Art",
recognizes that there is present in the younger
generation of Minimalists a pursuit which contradicts
the formal character followed by the previous
generation. Since it seeks a different direction, the
new art, as Rose sees it, demands a different approach
in the examination and explanation of its existence:

At this point I want to talk about
sensibility rather than style» because the
artists I'm discussing...are more related in
terms of a common sensibility than in terms
of a common style. Also, their attitudes,
interests, experiences and stance are much
like those of their contemporaries, the pop
artists, although stylistically the work is
not very similar...0bviously the new sensi-
bility that preferred Newman. and Johns to
Willem de Kooning or his epigoni was going to
produce art that was different, not only in
form but in content as well, from the art
that it spurned, because it rejected not only
the premises, but the emotional content of
abstract expressionism. I think we cannot
treat the revolt of these young artists as we
would that of artists of the age of the
second generation, that is, artists roughly
forty. For the art of that generation, the
assumption that form and content are
identical, the fundamental assumption of
formalist criticism, seems adequate to
describe the work. But in the work of the

15

younger people, one has the sense that form
and content do not coincide, that, in fact, a
bland neutral-looking form is tze vehicle for
a hostile, aggressive content.

Rose looks to both Duchamp and Kasimir Malevich as
the historical sources for the contemporary movement.
She finds that the minimalizing quality of the new art

finds its roots in Malevich and Duchamp who had

achieved "the inevitability of a reductive art..."15

For Malevich...this realization forced a
turning inward toward an inspirational
mysticism, whereas for Duchamp...it meant a
fatigue so enervating that finally the wish
to paint at all was killed. [This] led both
to ultimately reject and exclude from their
work many of the most cherished premises of
Western art in favor of an art stripped to
its bare, irreducible minimum...that the art
of our youngest artists resembles theirs in
its severe, reduced simplicity, or in its
frequent kinship to the world of things, must
be taken as some sort of validation of
[Malevich'sg and [Duchamp's] prophetic
reactions.

Rose questions the standard formal approach to art
as a method adequate to explain and examine new
directions in art. Since this new art appears to have
originated with Duchamp, she looks to his example as a
standard to perceive and comprehend the new paths in
art adopted by the younger generation of Minimalists.

Rose represents a number of scholars during this
time who call into question traditional attitudes
surrounding art. In her case, she focused on the

reductive, rather than formal, origins of the current

16

art and, in so doing, challenged the use of formal
critical methods to interpret non—formal art. Other
scholars, such as Richard Wollheim (1965) and Richard
Kuhns (1967) raise questions concerning the accepted
standards of originality. They, along with Nan»
Rosenthal (1965),17 touch on the role of the machine in
twentieth-century art and its impact on the traditional
value of the precious Masterpiece.

The issue of the machine aesthetic is recognized
as a significant influence (Hi the current art.
Following similar concerns, Max Kosloff (1969)18,
William Camfield (1966)19 and Brydon Smith (1966)20
discuss the relationship between the machine and those
artists from the early twentieth-century to the late
1960's who have been effected by mass—production,
kinetics, industrial textures and technology and the
mass—produced object.

Richard Wollheim's 1965 article on minimal art
highlights the importance the issue of originality
takes in the new art of the mid-1960's through its
adaptation of the mass-produced object into its
aesthetic means. Wollheim's primary intent 1J1 this
article is to pin down the current conception of what
constitutes originality in art and to (question the
parameters of this definition. At the same time, he

questions the artist's role as the heroic genius,

17

individual creator of the unique token, which is also
another traditional perception challenged by the new
Minimalist artists:

...There could not be a work of fine art
which was of a type of which there was more
than one token which...is clearly false...For
this...would have such sweeping and totally
objectionable consequences as that a work of
art, once copied, would cease to be a work of
art. It is indeed only when this, sort. of
possibility is quite artificially blocked by,
say, a quasi-empirical belief in the inimit-
ability of genius, that this...principle
could even begin to acquire p1ausibility...In
1917 Marcel Duchamp submitted a urinal as a
contribution to an exhibition of art. To many
people, such a gesture must have seemed
totally at variance with their concept 'of
art...If, however, we confine ourselves to
those tun) found the gesture acceptable, then
I want to suggest that what would have seemed
quite at variance with their concept of art
is that accepting the gesture committed them
to rejecting in advance any of a similar kind
subsequently made. Yet precisely this seems
to be the consequence of our principle. By a
simple action, Duchamp deprived all obje s
of a certain kind save one of art-quality.

Wollheim turns to Duchamp as the initiator of this
direction in art. Duchamp's submission of the urinal to
the Salon des Independents in 1917 introduced into the
world an object that was not created by the artist's
hand, but rather was one of many banal, mass—produced
objects placed within an art context. Duchamp becomes
the example to which Wollheim turns for evidence in
support of his argument. Duchamp lends a legitimacy to
the new minimalism through historic precedence and, at

the same time, refutes the myth of originality

18

surrounding the artist as autonomous creator and his
cherished object of art.

Richard Kuhns, in his 1967 article "Art and
Machine", also examines the accepted notions of
originality as they are challenged through works of art
which originate from some aspect of the machine. Kuhns
reveals that the machine is our basis for an aesthetic
criteria. Machine-made or machine-like objects are now
common place in the world of art. Like Wollheim, Kuhns
recognizes Duchamp as the innovator of this avenue of
art expression:

It is widely accepted today that almost
anything can become art simply through
inclusion in a collection...Now we face the
question, what, in this indiscriminate
gathering, is art-worthy? The eighteenth
century by and large did not have this
problem since naturalistic imitation served
to screen out such things as artifacts and
'found' objects. If our model is not nature
but machine, is there not properly a place
for the machine in our museums? Yet only
some machines or machine-like objects deserve
to get th To what are we committed by our
simple act of judgment?...The most startling
argument for a new set of criteria, and hence
of an altered vision, was given by Marcel
Duchamp when he indignantly protested the
rejection of his gguntain, a 'readymade', by
the Salon des Independents, New York, in
1917...But we cannot assume that Duchamp's
seriousness makes a truth: nor can we solve
the many problems entangled in his shocking
act by merely asserting that art is made out
of thought. For the thought itself is subject
to criticism and careful reflectiveness just
as is the object upon which Duchamp would
have us expend some thought. We can enjoy
Duchamp's daring act: it was a novel

19

rotation which changed the direction of

modern art, yet it was an act of limited

creativity, for once the readymade is singled

out, then anything becomes a possible art

object, and acts of selection post-Duchamp

cease to have the shock or interest of his.

Kuhns acknowledges that Duchamp's gesture was a
pivotal point in twentieth-century art and the
attitudes held toward art. However, he also reveals
that in recognizing Duchamp as the originator of the
machine-inspired art object all other like objects have
the potential for becoming art, but all other like
gestures become repetitions of the original.
Originality in machine-inspired art died upon Duchamp's
initial presentation of a pre-fabricated object as a
work of art:

We can say, I think, that Duchamp is a

remarkable artist because he did something

that cannot be imitated, for he found art in

the engineered. He was the only one who

could do this and be original 33d all who do

it after him are imitating him.

Kuhns' use of Duchamp's example to challenge the
accepted ideas concerning originality and the place of
the machine in art's history further asserts Duchamp's
role as a suitable standard for exploring and
clarifying contemporary issues. Kuhns' perception of
Duchamp as the sole originator of a facet of twentieth-
century art lends to Duchamp's image the power of

persuasion for, in being the first, he is therefore a

leader, one to turn to for direction and inspiration

20

concerning matters of the valuei of art and how we
perceive and determine such values.

The presence of technology in art gave rise to
questions concerning the role of the artist in the
process of making art, which :hi turn effected the
questioning of the accepted parameters of what'
determines a work of art. These challenges to the
accepted ways of perceiving and comprehending the art
object, its maker and its make-up were found within the
new generation's art objects.

These concerns were transferred tn) contemporary
criticism. Thus, critics attempted to reconcile these
questions by uncovering the historical precedence for
such maneuvers in art, resulting in the challenge, and
subsequent reassessment, of the accepted historical
interpretations of the heroic avant-garde in
twentieth-century art and the notion of the autonomous
genius outside his society. This attitude toward art's
history came under attack by scholars such as Sidney
Tillim, Mahinri Sharp Young (l968)24 and James Burr
(1966).25

Sidney Tillim represents the faction of critics
who focus their challenge of the accepted standards of
art toward a herioicized version of modern art's
history. In his 1965 article "The Mythical History of

Modern Art“ he criticizes the brand of art history

21

which interprets modern art's history as a series of
heroic deeds performed by geniuses akin to Michelangelo
or Leonardo. In this respect, it is not only the idea
of 'the artist as heroic genius which comes under
attack, but also the system which promotes and
validates a mythical perception of art, the artist and
his history.

Tillim criticizes this system by singling out
certain heroes who have risen to the stature of deities
through the promotioncf the heroic myth. As. in the
previously discussed articles by Gray and Wurdemann,
Duchamp was portrayed as a hero within the avant—garde
due to his all-pervasive influence throughout the
twentieth-century. This lent him an authoritative
position in art history, resulting in the perception of
him as a standard used by critics of the latter half of
the 1960's to examine and explain the new aesthetic and
ideological directions followed by artists of the same
period. Tillim focuses on Duchamp's authoritative role
to denounce the system which elevated him to such a
position:

The history of modernist art is rich in

flawed geniuses whose historical roles have

been permitted and finally encouraged to
overshadOw the limitations of their art...Far

more exaggerated, and as a consequence a more

serious matter is the stature of Duchamp,

recently the subject of both a retrospective
that was acquired by a single collection and

22

a 'profile' in the New Yorker, which the

latter climaxes the paradoxes of a career in

which ambitigéi and success are said to have

had no part.

Tillim perceives Duchamp as representing one of
the heroes within modern art's mythical history and
uses his example to criticize the system which assigned
him this rank. Tillim recognizes the interpretation of
history that accommodates the belief in the myth of the
artist as romantic hero and suffering genius on the
outskirts of his society. This brand of art history,
Tillim feels, ignores the context in which the art was
made in favor of concentrating on the autonomy of the
artist and his genius personality. In this respect,
Tillim questions the accepted value individuality and
originality play in art by demonstrating the
inadequacies of the dominant method used to interpret
art history. In so doing, he demythologizes the
popular heroic perception by calling for an interpre-
tation of an artist as a product and reflection of his
times, rather than an isolated entity uneffected and
detached from the events and ideas around him.

Throughout this tumultuous period of the mid to
late sixties, Duchamp is maintained as the solid
standard by which one can explore and explain the

issues found in the new art of the Minimalists and

Conceptualists, issues which present a challenge to

23

traditionally held values concerning'ioriginality' and
individuality in art as well as accepted brands of
modern art history and the critical methods used in its
interpretation.

Duchamp's elevated (or inflated) authority,
derived from the image of him as the source for this
direction in art, legitimized the use of his example as
a means of analyzing and clarifying contemporary
concerns.

This recognition of Duchamp as an authority figure
was the result of earlier heroic promotions of Duchamp
as the primary influence for the avant-garde art of
this century. His role in the history of the
avant-garde was elevated from the status of member to
that of father figure in its lineage. The various
retrospective exhibitions and articles of the immediate
post war years allowed America to see in physical terms
Duchamp's role as a member of the European avant-garde
and to assess his contribution to the continuation of
the avant-garde tradition :hi America, adding to
America's new identity as a leading cultural center for

modern art.

THE IMPACT OF ETANT DONNES

 

24

The discovery of Etant Donnés upon Duchamp's death

 

in late 1968 and its public emergence early in 1969
came as a shock, not only because it had remained a
secret for so long, but also because, stylistically, it
was drastically different from the rest of Duchamp's
works. As the "Jester of Anti-art", Duchamp was
notorius for ridiculing the Western tradition of easel
painting. Indifference, silence and the will to not
make art were his oeuvre, including the legend he had
built up around himself as an anti-artist. Therefore,

when Etant Donnés was found painted in the trompe

 

l'oeil tradition of the "old Master's", the work
fiercely contradicted previously held perceptions of
who and what Duchamp had been.

Furthermore, the date of the work, 1946-1966,
raised other questions concerning the development of
modern art in America within these years. The work
challenged the then accepted lineage of modern art
because it predated by more than ten years other
tableaux/voyeuristic works by yemnger artists such as

Ed Kienholz in State Hospital from 1964-66, Jasper

 

Johns in Target with Plaster Casts from 1955, Robert

 

Rauschenberg in Untitled Construction from 1962 and
27

 

George Segal in Old Woman at a Window from 1965.

 

25

Duchamp's unavailability for questioning augmented
the confusion and forced scholars to search for clues
among his notes and various objects for any
clarification. Thus, the discovery of this work, and
the contradictions which arose from its existence, fit
well into the questioning milieu of the latter half of
the 1960's and prompted scholars to inquire into the
artistic mysteries of Duchamp and reassess his overall
contribution to twentieth-century art.

The startling revelation of Etant Donnés had upset

 

the accepted pattern of modern art's history, as well
as that of Duchamp, and since Duchamp's history by the
late 1960Ms had become so intimately connected to the
progressive development of twentieth-century art, both

needed to be re-evaluated. Through Etant Donnés

 

Duchamp shook the very foundations which had been built
on his example. With this standard overturned, scholars
turned in upon their own discipline to re-examine
Duchamp and his role in the history of modern art.

In this 1969 publication sponsored by the
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Anne d'Harnoncourt and
Walter Hops reveal the perplexity and uncertainty in

the atmosphere at the time Etant Donnés was unveiled.

 

26

Its existence alone upsets any number of
theories or speculations about Duchamp that
have been current for' years. Here» all at
once, is evidence of a sustained period of
work on something obviously important to him,
carried out in privacy...The result of his
underground activity is not only a revelation
which suddenly brings a new coherence into
the seemingly random group of small works
produced during the fifties, but it also
throws a new light on the total output, bOEQ
visual and verbal of Duchamp's long career.

Hops and d'Harnoncourt also recognized the need
"to return to the literature on Duchamp and...[his]
works..."29 at this crucial point in the history of
art. This calls for a reassessment of Duchamp and the
past inter- pretations of his life and his relationship
to the rest of art history foreshadowed the burgeoning
of written material which erupted in the 1970's and

1980's, a period that, for the purpose of this study,

will be classified as the post-Etant Donnés era.

 

As in the pre—Etant Donnés era, critics of the

 

post-Etant Donnés era share common threads of thought

 

that demonstrate the introspection and reassessment
taking place in the Duchamp criticism as a result of

the discovery of Etant Donnés in the latter half of the

 

1960's when the atmosphere was charged with the

challenge to accepted beliefs and traditions in art.
The concepts or issues that "dominate Duchamp

criticism of the 1970's and 1980's continue the

challenge inherited from the 1960's by focusing on the

27

reassessment of the value of originality in art, the
pursuit of content and meaning, the use of
non-traditional media, the borrowing of Duchampian
strategies and the self-critical examination of the

discipline of art criticism.

I. Originality

The issue of cmiginality comes under fire in the
new wave of reexamination and reassessment in the
1970's and 1980's. In the previous era, originality
had also been a topic among scholars, however, the
difference between the two lies in their perception of
Duchamp's role as originator of the machine aesthetic
in the history of modern art.

In the pre-Etant Donnés era, Duchamp was perceived
as an autonomous genius who had instigated the use of
the mass-produced object in a work of art. All other
artists who utilized a technology-inspired element in
their work were merely copying the original idea of

Duchamp. In the post-Etant Donnés era, this heroicized

 

interpretation of Duchamp's role in the issue of
originality comes under scrutiny in the reexamination
of Duchamp and his place in art history.

Duchamp's readymade is perceived in the 1970's and

1980's as an implicit attack on the romantic perception

28

of the artist as an autonomous genius and a rebuttal
against the glorification of the art ‘product as ,a
precious, individual object. John Elderfield in his
1974 article, "High Modern: An Introduction to
Post-Pollock Painting :hi America", supports this
reinterpretation of the readymade's role as a criticism
of the sacred regard for the unique and exclusive act
or product, rather than the ultimate original gesture
as it was perceived by Kuhns (1967) and Wollheim
(1965). Through its banal, sterile appearance, the
readymade in the art context questions the value placed
on the subjective, individual presence of the artist in
the finished work of art:

What more invisible poet is there than Marcel

Duchamp, whose 'irony of indifference' in

signing an object he never made nor algared

18 the very apothe051s of impersonality.

Molly Nesbit also refutes the notion of the ready-
made as the original anti-art gesture in her 1986
article, "Readymade Originals: The Duchamp Model".

She argues that Duchamp's readymades and other

machine-inspired works (such as the Large Glass) were

 

neither purely autonomous acts, nor entirely indigenous
to the twentieth-century.

She~ reveals that nineteenth-century French
drafting schools fbcused cut teaching the rudiments of

technological design. From this source, Duchamp arrived

29

at his industrialized objects and imagery. His
"personal style" of the indifferent and the mechanical
were, thus, neither autonomous nor original.
Furthermore, his machine~inspired works negated any
"signature style" in the first place since they were
based on the fundamental techniques of industrial
design, not a subjective alteration created by the
artist.

Nesbit's discovery erodes the pedestal of the
divinely inspired genius on which Duchamp previously
had been set by uncovering the cultural context
surrounding the origins of Duchamp's readymades.

The once accepted values of artistic originality
are thwarted as well by Timothy Binkley in his 1977
article, "Piece: Contra Aesthetics", where he attempts
to show that aesthetic and original value need not be
present in an object for it to be art:

Art in the twentieth—century has emerged as a

strongly self-critical discipline. It. has
freed itself of aesthetic parameters and
sometimes creates directly with ideas

unmediated by aesthetic qualities. An artwork

is a piece: and a piece need not be 3in

aesthetic object or even an object at all.

Duchamp's readymades break down the traditional
definition of what constitutes a work of art by

replacing aesthetic and original value with conceptual

value. In other words, the profundity of the thought

3O

behind the object overrides the value of aesthetics and
originality seen in the final product. The readymades
question the significance of these values by denying
them:

Art need not be aesthetic. L.H.0.0.g. Shaved
makes the point graphic by duplicating the
appearance of the Mona Lisa while depriving
it of its aesthetic import. The two works
look exactly the same but are completely
different. As the risque joke is compounded
by L.H.O.g;g. Shaved, the Mona Lisa is
humiliated. Though restored to its original
appearance, it is not restored to its
original state. Duchamp added only the
moustache and goatee, but when he removed
them the sacred aura of aesthetic qualities
vanished as well ---’ it had been a
conventional artistic covering which adhered
to the moustache and goatee when they were
removed, like paint stuck to tape. The
original image is intactn but literalized:
its function in Duchamp's piece is just to
denote the Mona Lisa.

 

 

 

 

Thierry De Duve in his 1986 article, "The
Readymade and the Tube of Paint", also reexamines the
traditional values attached to the originality of a
work of art as it is derived from the hand of the
artist. De Duve points out that Duchamp's anti-art
gestures are a criticism of these traditional artistic
values. However, he argues that it is not the
readymades that ushered in his de-personalized oeuvre,
but rather his rejection of the retinal experience and
process of painting that initially scorned the value

placed on artistic originality.

31

Unlike the 1960's heroic perception of this
action, De Duve refutes the myth of Duchamp as the
originator of devaluing originality by attributing
Duchamp's influence to. the cultural context of the
early twentieth-century. His study reveals that the
social and economic climate of this period may have
compelled Duchamp to reject the act of painting for the
mechanized direction his art pursued, rejecting the
idea that the artistic process is a manifestation of
genius:

'Le Passage'...represents a crucial point of
passage in Duchamp's life and work: one in
which, I believe, he accomplished his desire
to become a significant painter and, by the
same token, one in which something was
revealed to him about paint's loss of
historical significance. If you are not a
'born painter'...then you have to labor hard
toward being born as a painter. But, once
you are born, once you have witnessed your
own birth-to-painting, have taken revenge
against uneven talent and asserted your name
as a painter, why do it again? Wouldn't you
repeat yourself...and indulge in a crafts-
manship altogether obsolete as such? For it
may well be that in industrialized society
the specialized craft called painting has
become useless in the face of mechanization
and division of labor, as they replace the
craftsman in most of his social and economic
functions, and that it must be felt as
impossible by whomever has the ambition to
push art beyond those functions and have it
carry on a meaningful tradition. The hack-
neyed issue of the 'death of painting' is
inseparable from both the objective
conditions that have made painting useless as
craft and the subjective feelifig that has
made it impossible as tradition.

32

One of the ways in which authors like De Duve,
Nesbit and Binkley were able to pose ai new
interpretation of the relationship between Duchamp's
machine—inSpired works and originality was to transcend
the heroic facade of a work of art and focus instead on
its underlying content or meaning.

Critics recognized that Duchamp's impersonal,
banal, machine-inspired objects functioned as a
criticism of traditionally held attitudes and values
concerning art. However, as noted by De Duve and
Nesbit, Duchamp was not the original genius as previous
interpretations had led one to believe, but rather the
cultural context of the time in which the readymades
and other inspired objects had been produced influenced
Duchamp's ideas for these works and motivated him in
the direction he ultimately pursued throughout his

career.

II. Content
In the 1970's and 1980's, content grew to be a
dominant issue upon the attempt to reexamine and re-
interpret Duchamp and art's history. The links between
Etant Donnés and Duchamp's smattering of objects,
sketches and notes became a concern of scholars and
gave rise to such questions as "Where did it all come

from?" and "What does it all mean?". Getting beyond

33

the superficial veils of romanticized interpretations
to the content beneath, revealed to scholars that
Duchamp, the initial insurgent of major movements of
.the twentieth-century, had been influenced by other
sources: some philosophical, alchemical, literary, and
mathematical. Furthermore, scholars found that Duchamp
had been influenced by fellow artists contemporary with
him.

Uncovering the meaning, subject matter and
influences contained within Duchamp's oeuvre revealed,
as it had in an examination of originality, that he was
not an autonomous genius, thus refuting the illustrious
image promoted by previous critical interpretations of
the 1950's and 1960's.

This examination of the content and context of
Duchamp's art resulted in a plethora of microcosmic
studies involving single aspects of his art or his
influences. The concern for content also led scholars
to explore individual works or ideas, not previously
pursued, and link these pieces to their place in the
overall puzzle of Duchamp's ouevre. Searching for
underlying content and meaning also provided scholars
with a means of reexamining Duchamp's connection with
other artists and movements within the

twentieth-century and allowed them to expand their

34

awareness of the overall picture of modern art history
as well.

One of the works which had remained neglected by
the more formal branch of art history was Duchamp's
only film '"Anemic-Cinema". Katrina Martin's 1975
article, "Duchamp's Anemic-Cinema', provides a
background on the making of this film and attempts to
explain its existence in relation to Duchamp's
readymades. Anette Michelson in "'Anemic—Cinema'
Reflections on an Emblematic Work", from 1973, also
focuses on the relationship between Duchamp's single
film and the remainder of his products.34 Although he
worked in this medium only once, she reveals how this
film reflects Duchamp's logical progression away from
easel painting by demonstrating how it harbors his
interest in motion, sexuality, time and language as do
many of his other objects. Her efforts to show the
place of this film within Duchamp's development and the
scope of his interests not only demonstrates the
significance scholars were giving to content, but also
exemplifies the developing interest in film as an art
form during the early 1970's.

The search for content in the art of Duchamp
bestowed a new importance to seemingly random sketches
or less monumental objects by revealing their function

as an impetus or precursor to pieces that represented

35

the culmination of his ideas. Lawrence Steefel in his
1976 article, "Marcel Duchamp's 'Encore a cet Astre', A
New Look“, made it his crusade to uncover some of the
lesser known sketches and their role as a link in the
chain of a developing idea. Steefel focuses on "Encore
a cet Astre' and its significance to the outcome of
"Nude Descending a Staircase".35

Hellmut Wohl examines a letter and an accompanying
drawing called "Du Tignet" in his 1977 article, "Beyond
the Large Glass: Notes on a Landscape Drawing by Marcel
Duchamp". This small sketch includes hills and a tele—
graph pole located outside of a house once visited by

Duchamp. The same motif is found in a landscape sketch

of the Large Glass. The backdrop for Etant Donnés also

 

 

uses this landscape motif, demonstrating the intricate
web of Duchamp's art in which all thoughts, gestures
and products are bound.

In "Theatre of the Conceptual. Autobiography and
Myth", 1973, Robert Pincus-Witten focuses on Duchamp's
erotic objects which functioned as stepping stones to

the end product, Etant Donnés. He explains the sexual

 

implications behind the objects and pinpoints how and

where they reappear :hi Etant.‘Donnés. Pincus-Witten

 

further emphasizes the significance of these small,
once neglected, objects by placing them in the context

of their influence upon the younger generation of

36

Conceptual artists, taking the issue of uncovering
content one step further by demonstrating how Duchamp's
works become the content of contemporary products.

Some scholars pursued the meaning behind Duchamp's
art by examining a single facet of subject or influence
found in many of his works. For example, A. Cook in
1986 explores the irony in Duchamp's works while Kermit
Champa in 1974 takes a Freudian approach to
interpreting Duchamp. This desire to study a facet of
content led some scholars to formulate new approaches
as they pursued the interpretation of meaning in
Specific works of art.

Jack Burnham assumes a prominent role in this
intensive search for meaning in Duchamp by attempting
to reveal the inconography in his works. Burnham
perceives that art possesses its own system of language
and poses that this language of art can be read by
interpreting the series of signs and mythic structures
that the artist has planted in his work. He arrives at
this facet in Duchamp's content from his study of
semiotics and the writings of Claude Levi-Straus on
mythic structures.

Burnham devises his approach from the tools of
language and philosophy. He utilizes elements which are

non—formal to uncover aspects of Duchamp's art which

37

are also non-formal. Burnham uses the tenants of philo-
s0phy, literature, alchemy, magic and semiotics to
reveal and interpret the underlying iconography found
in Duchamp's work. In an interview from 1970 with
Willoughby Sharp, Burnham demonstrates his inter—

pretation of Duchamp's meaning in the Large Glass and

 

reveals Duchamp's pursuit of allegory which may have
remained unknown if the work had only been seen in a
formal manner:

[Duchamp] definitely didn't follow a
structural procedure which would lead people
to accept it as art, but he perversely sets
out to produce something which, as Levi-
Strauss would say, culturalizes the cultural.
In order to produce art, you have to
culturalize the natural, then naturalize the
culture...What Duchamp has done is to take a
cultural activity, i.e., the historical myth
of modern art, deduce what the structure is,
and then, in a series of fantastic alle-
gories, put into strange images the whole
history of modern art. This is what the Large
Glass really represents. It has a lot of
machines in the lower section --- scissors,
grinders, gliders, etc. That's (x1 purpose:
it represents the patriarchal elements of
reason, progress, male dominance. The top of
the Large Glass is the female component:
intuition, lovev interggl consistency» art,
beauty and myth itself.

Burnham's crusade to extrapolate hidden meanings
in Duchamp demonstrates the intense drive to uncover

content in the post-Etant Donnés era. In 1972, Burnham

 

in "The True Readymade?", attempts to reveal the true

definition of the readymade through a semiotic system

38

based on a cycle of the four elements --— earth, wind,~
fire and air --- and their relation to nature and
culture. He links the readymade with this contrived

cycle of semiotics and attempts to uncover the masked
meanings behind Duchamp's puns in his choice of titles
for the readymades.

In "The Semiotics of 'End Game' Art", 1972,
Burnham believes that Duchamp was aware of the Hebrew
alphabet due to semiotic evidence Burnham finds in his
art that suggest ties to this branch of language.
Duchamp's chess game is one such object that, for
Burnham, harbors language-related content. He, there-
fore, proceeds to examine the metaphorical and
linguistic symbols hidden ixt this generally neglected
object.

Burnham's semiotic and allegorical interpretations
of the content in Duchamp receives criticism from
another prominent author during this time, Willis
Domingo~ In his 1972 articles "Meaning in the Art of
Marcel Duchamp, Parts I & II", Domingo perceives
Burnham's approach as subjective and arbitrary for he
believes that Burnham forces content-based messages
onto the works, rather than allowing the works to
reveal their content through themselves and the words

of the artist. Domingo enlists the support of Duchamp's

39

own perspective in order to embark on a search for
content:

By transferring the locus of artistic meaning
to the plane of verbal expression, Burnham
has merely displaced what remains problematic
in and of itself,-and so he has avoided the
central issue of elucidating the legitimacy
of Duchamp's claim to meaning. That it is at
all possible to put into a proposition the
fact that the critic or art historian is
'sympathetic to the artist's work', and
therefore 'understands' the nature of
Duchamp's crucial move whereby the respon-
sibility for the content of esthetic meaning
is placed almost solely with the viewer and
more specifically with the art historian,
necessarily implies a more fundamental struc-
ture which creates in the sympathetic critic
the very capability of filling in the
meaning. In the end, an elucidation of this
more fundamental structure will do more
justice to the extraordinary significance of
Duchamp's art than will the imposition of any
transcendent and external systems of
thought.

Furthermore, Domingo recognizes the problem which
arises when something non-verbal is interpreted in
verbal form. Through the recognition of this seemingly
dialectical relationship between. the visual and the
verbal, Domingo approaches Duchamp by using the method
of the artist (Duchamp) as the basis for his approach
in an interpretation of content. In this respect,
Domingo relies more heavily on the published ideas and
attitudes of Duchamp to find meaning in his work,
rather than projecting ancillary’ theories (M1 to ‘the

artist.

40

III. Non-traditional media

In the criticism of the 1970's and 1980's, critics
focused on the content behind Duchamp and revealed that
he utilized a variety of non-traditional media in his
work. These unorthodox forms of media may have
originated from any number of disciplines not directly
related to formal art including language, philosophy,
alchemy, irony, poetry, mathematical concepts and film
technology.

Craig Adcock reveals in his 1984 article,
"Geometrical Complication in the Art of Marcel
Duchamp", how Duchamp utilized mathematical concepts as
a means of arriving at his own philosophy of doubt, one
of the underlying theoretical structures of his art.
Adcock also reveals the influence of mathematics, both

in its forms and philosophies, in the Large Glass. In

 

this respect, the abstract ideas, as well as the
mathematical forms and formulae of geometry, are
utilized as a means of achieving a particular aesthetic
or theoretical end in art:

Major aspects of Duchamp's system involved
speculations about four-dimensional visual
perception. His analyses of hypothetical
ways of 'seeing' fundamentally affected the
'1ook' of his art. He, in a sense, chose the
discipline of geometry as an intellectual
readymade and incorpoggted it into his
'accumulation of ideas'.

41

In "Italian Futurism and 'The Fourth Dimension'"
(1981), Linda Henderson examines the nature of the
fourth dimension as perceived by the artists of the
early twentieth-century. She reveals how various
artists of this time theorized on this facet of time
and space and how these concerns were employed in the
composing of their art. Duchamp's exploits in the
fourth dimension, in terms of his studies in geometry,
are mentioned by Henderson as well.

(In the view of these critics the intangible,
unorthodox media of geometrical concepts and fourth—
dimensional theories are as essential an ingredient in
Duchamp's oeuvre as conventional and physically
tangible materials. What doesn't appear on the surface
determines the outcome of a work of art just as much,
if not more so at times, as what can be seen.

Another non-physical and unorothodox element found
in Duchamp's art was literature. As David Antin points
out in "Duchamp: The Meal and the Remainder" (1972),
the words of Duchamp are just as much a viable art
product as anything physically tangible. When combined
with an object, words become the medium of the work of
art.39

Other authors demonstrate Duchamp's dependence on
the literary and philosophical pursuits of various

model poets, theoriticians and artists throughout

42

history. Ronald Johnson (1976), for example, finds that
Duchamp harbored an affinity for the French poetic
tradition and reveals the influence of the nihilistic
writings of Jules LaForgue on his work. An examination
of Walter Arensberg's activities in cryptograph is
undertaken by Francis Naumann (1977). He links
Arensberg's hobby as an inspirational source for
Duchamp by revealing the cryptographic methods of
Arensberg which surface in the work and word games of
Duchamp. Adcock concerns himself once again with
Duchamp's use of geometrical theories in his 1984
article "Conceptualism in Henri Poincaré and Marcel
Duchamp". Here, he reveals the specific mathematical
and philosophical influences of Henri Poincare that are
found in Duchamp's oeuvre. These authors demonstrate
how Duchamp absorbed the material of these individuals
and incorporated their concepts into the vast array of
unconventional media within his works.

Barbara Rose discusses the early films of Man Ray
and Moholy-Nagy in "Kinetic Solutions to Pictoral
Problems: The Films of Man Ray and Moholy-Nagy"
(1971). Duchamp is mentioned as part of the retinue of
artists during the early 1920's who were inspired by
the mechanization of movement through film and who

subsequently turned their attention to kinetic art.

43

Film, just as philosophy, geometry and poetry, is'
demonstrated here as a vehicle in the composing and
constructing of a work of art. Rose's focus reveals
that it is not the physical medium of film that plays

this role, as would be the case in Anemic—Cinema, but

 

rather the ideas generated from the mechanical workings
of film became part of the media in other works.40

In examining the content and meaning of his works,
critics revealed that Duchamp's art objects consisted
of more than just their physical appearance. In
addition, they discovered that the body of his oeuvre
encompassed words and phrases which were just as much a
part of his art as were his more permanent, visual
products. These elements of language and thought also
functioned as a medium in the make-up of his tangible
objects, demonstrating that the components of a final

art product are not always visible in a traditional

sense.

IV. Duchampian Strategies

 

During the late 1940's and 1950's, the critical
examinations of Duchamp's contribution to the avant-
garde and the retrospective exhibitions which
physically displayed his part in its continuing
tradition, exposed Duchamp to several members of the

art world.

44

By the late 1950's and early 1960's, critics
realized the seminal role Duchamp had played in the
course of twentieth-century art and regarded him as a
leader and father-figure, especially in the development
of the American avant-garde. His heroic status made
him an appealing source of influence to the younger
generation and, by the latter half of the 1960's,
critics were able to draw parallels between the new art
and Duchamp, who, indeed, had provided a model for the
younger generation of Minimalists and Conceptualists.

Critics noted that, although Duchamp had
profoundly influenced these 1960's protégés, it was a
common ideology and approach they shared, rather than a
particular appearance. With the shocking discovery of

Etant Donnés, Duchamp continued to intrigue younger

 

members of the art world in the 1970's and 1980's.
However, in this era, Duchamp is used less as a mentor
or standard as he had been in the 1960's and more as a
medium. These artists directly borrow images and
phrases from Duchamp's oeuvre and use them as subject
matter within the content of their works. Such
quotations from the past are defined as a means for
artists to reinterpret and reexamine their own
discipline and its history.

Critics of the same period perceive Duchamp's

presence to be visible, rather than felt as it had in

45

the previous decades of the twentieth-century, and
refer to the direct borrowing from his ouevre as using
Duchampian Strategies.

Many of the articles written during the post-Egggt
Donnés era discuss the role Duchamp plays as a medium
or subject in the content of art in the 1970's) and
1980's. Gavin Bryars in "Notes on Marcel Duchamp's
Music" of 1976 includes an interview with John Cage
that reveals his relationship ‘with Duchamp and the
aspects of Duchamp that have been retained in Cage's
music. In his 1971 article, "Proteus and Dusseldorf",
Alastair Mackintosh examines the work by Joseph Beuys
entitled "The Silences of Marcel Duchamp are Overrated"
and reveals Duchamp's presence as subject in this work
as well as his influence on the overall career of
Beuys. Robert Pincus-Witten's article "Vito Acconci
and the Conceptual Idea" (1972) covers the development
of Acconci's performance art, in which his
appropriations from Duchamp include the joining of
Minimalist forms and Duchampian eroticisms. Jeseph
Masheck, in his 1976 article "On Patrick Ireland's
Electrocardiographic Portrait: of Marcel Duchamp",
examines the piece by Patrick Ireland which deve10ped
from a cardiogram of Duchamp taken by Ireland himself.
In "Decoys and Doubles: Jasper Johns and the Modernist

Mind" (1976), Barbara Rose recounts Johns' detailed

46

study of Duchamp's notes from the Green Box and how

 

certain Duchampian gestures and ideas play a vital role
in the constructs of Johns' work.

Craig Adcock, in "Why Marcel Duchamp's Old Hat
Still Address the Situation to the Nines" (1985), Seth
Edenbaum, in "Parody and Privacy" (1987), and Thomas
McEvilley, in "I Think Therefore I Art" (1985), and
also in "Empyrrihical Thinking (and why kant can't)"
(1988), examine the use of Duchampian Strategies in the
art of the 1980's. These three authors criticize the
direct quotation of Duchamp's work by revealing that he
has been misinterpreted and misused by these younger
artists. Their borrowing of his philosophy, gestures
and products in their work is found to be faulty
because it makes Duchamp into a style and contradicts
the initial intention behind his actions.

McEvilley, in his 1988 article, provides an
exemplary summation of the attitudes prevalent in these
three representative authors:

Much of the current readymade work, though it

may be attractive, and even intelligent in

its focus, should not be regarded as

Duchampian. It may look Duchampian, but to

concentrate on the look is to miss the point.

Duchamp's readymades function as a rejection

of style: today the readymade has become a

style even when it could be described as an

academic style. Where the 'Fountain' shocked

and the snow shovel aimed at indifference,

this generation of readymades placates and
pleases. His works are often involved in

47

language: the current versions are mainly
mute form. He rejected commodification:
today's objects affirm it...An accurate,
receiver of the Duchampian message would, at
this moment, stay as far from the look of his
work as possible, since the look of his work
has now become part of the rigidity of habit
that it was designed to pry loose. The point
of Duchamp's violation of the gallery space
-u"- the urinal flung in their faces —-- was
not to establish a new style of exhibited
object, but to suggest that humans can
exhibit anything at all to one another, with
the countless ranges of meaning and types of
appfieciation that this realization opens

up.

The critical evaluation of a current issue in art
reflects art scholars' criticism and continual re-
examination of their own discipline. Just as artists
quoted and reinterpreted their past through gestures of
borrowing, as in the use of Duchampian Strategies, so
too did art cmitics reassess their field by examining

the past's critical interpretation of art history.

V. The Criticism of Art History

 

While examining the content and influences of
Duchamp, critics in the 1970's and 1980's found the
heroicizing approach tn) his role in art history to be
unsatisfactory. This critical attitude had unfolded in
the charged atmosphere of the later 1960's and had
encouraged scholars to reassess and reexamine Duchamp

upon the discovery of Etant Donnés. Since the heroic

 

perception of Duchamp had led critics to use his

48

example as a standard, historical and critical
interpretations had intricately woven Duchamp's history
together with that of modern art, compelling scholars
to critically review the rest of the twentieth-century
as well. As critics uncovered other unsatisfactory
critical and historical interpretations, they found it
necessary to critically review' not only the entire
course of art history, but the history and methods of
their own discipline as well, continuing the challenges
to accepted approaches and perceptions as set forth in
the latter half of the 1960's.

One of the results of this critical introspection
was the study of particular movements or artists that
had once been neglected by the heroic interpretation of
the avant-garde in art history. Frank. Bowling in
"Fluid Structures: Futurism and Beyond" (1971) attempts
to elucidate the contributions made to art history by
Italian Futurists. He asserts that the achievements of
the Futurists have been overshadowed by Duchamp and
their contributions, although similar to Duchamp's,
have been downplayed to his example throughout history.
In "Man Ray: Early Paintings 1913-1916 -Theory and
Practice in the Art of Two Dimensions" (1982), Francis
Naumann also attempts to make amends by criticizing the
previous detrimental assessments of Man Ray's

contribution to American Art. Duchamp is seen as one

49

of the many influences of Man Ray, rather than his sole
provider, in this in-depth re-analysis of Man Ray's
individual accomplishments and his participation in the
development of American art.

Other scholars direct their attention toward re-
examining the cultural context of particular episodes
in the history of twentieth-century art. Patrick
Stewart, in "The European Art Invasion: American Art
and the Arensberg Circle 1914-18" (1977) studies the
role of the European avant-garde in their first descent
on America in the early twentieth-century, while Marina
Vaizey in "The Muses Flee Hitler" (1984) focuses on the
European avant-garde in America during the 1940's.
Stewart and Vaizey discuss the presence of the European
avant-garde in America during the first half of the
twentieth-century and reveal the Europeans' impact on
America and its response to their presence. Moira
Roth's 1977 article "The Aesthetic of Indifference"
also focuses on an objective reexamination of a turning
point in America's history of modern art and the role
Duchamp played at this point in time. Roth examines
the era of McCarthyism and the development of the
aesthetic of indifference in American art during the
Red Scare. These reexaminations of the contextual
history of art de-heroicize the role of the European

avant-garde in America by presenting their history in a

50

straightforward, unromantic manner. This objective
approach is achieved by calling attention to the
economic, political, social and ideological atmosphere
of the times, which would have shaped events in art
history just as it would other facets of life.

In an article of 1981, Robert Morris re-evaluates
Duchamp's influence in the development of modern art as
do Brian O'Doherty in 1976 and John Tancock in 1973.
These authors reexamine patterns in art history as they
were influenced by Duchamp. Morris, for example, in
"American Quartet" defines the origins of Modern
American art as analogous to a plot of land, governed
at its four corners by Pollock, Duchamp, Hopper and
Cornell. These are the four who have pointed the
direction of twentieth-century art and whose guideposts
endure to the present. In his article entitled "Inside
the White Cube: Context as Content" O'Doherty describes
the history of modern art as analogous to the building
of a house. Duchamp is perceived as providing the roof
to this house.

John Tancock in "The Oscillating Influence of
Marcel Duchamp" diagrams the pattern of his influence
on the art of this century. Tancock perceives this
pattern, not in the form of a diamond shape like
Picasso's, which is characterized by a gradual

building, peaking at the height of his career and then

de:

0':

51

descending towards the end. Rather, he sees Duchamp's
presence in this century as an expansive one, becoming
more potent as his career progressed and continuing to
be a major influence even within the decades preceding
his death.

Brandon Taylor in "Duchamp's Art Legacy" (1980)
also reevaluates art history, however, he focuses on
the interpretation of it by the Conceptualists. He
challenges the 1960's Conceptualists' interpretation of
Duchamp as their heroic mentor, a status he acquired
through their perception of him as the originator of a
non-retinal form of art that paved the way for a new
direction in art.

Taylor removes Duchamp from this heroic pedestal

q

and reexamines him in light of his own historical
context, rather than through the ideals of an admiring
generation:

...Thus did Duchamp express the nature of his
antagonism to the 'retinal' --- or the
narrowly visual. The kind of retinal painting
from which he was trying to escape was that
of the visual interesting surface in contrast
to the more valuable commodity, the visually
significant image. Latter-day conceptual
artists were too much bent on ritual
cleansing to notice that this important
distinction was there to be made...
Conceptualist critics were exemplary' in
parading some of Duchamp's activities as
having heralded totally new possibilities,
and of effectively having changed the course
of art in our time. For the conceptualist
version of history said, in part, that while

52

the innovations of Cubism merely offered
different artisitic pronouncements in an old
language, very roughly the language of easel
painting, Duchamp's almost simultaneous
abandonment of 'retinal' art in favor of the
readymade succeeded in creating not simply

new art pfigpositions, but a totally new

language...

This quest on the part of art scholars to
challenge, reinterpret and reexamine the accepted
beliefs in the develOping course of art history led
them to criticize the standards used to formulate these
beliefs. David Buren in "Standpoints" (1971) and Robert
O'Rorke in "Into the TMilight Zone" (1973) comment on
the criteria scholars used to qualify the significance
of a: work of art and, thereby, determine its place in
art history.

David Buren attempts to solve the question "What
constitutes a work of art?" by examining Duchamp's
response to qualitative value judgments in art history,
while Robert O'Rorke explores this issue by criticizing
those scholars who justify the presence of a work of
art by its ability to fit within the parameters of a
pre-determined order. O'Rorke feels that if this is
the state for determining value in art, then "new" art,
or art that challenges set standards, might possibly
have been misjudged in the past because there exists

for the "new" art no order or historical niche into

which it can be placed. O'Rorke elaborates on his point

53

by demonstrating that Duchamp's Fountain of 1917 is

 

exemplary of this art of the "twilight zone" because
its intent was to disrupt the hierarchy of critical
criteria and comment on the standards for value and
taste, just as O'Rorke and Buren do in their
representative articles.

Steven Goldsmith in "The Readymades of Marcel
Duchamp: The Ambiguities of an Aesthetic Revolution"
(1983) also criticizes the tendency to make art conform
to a category. Like O'Rorke, Goldsmith turns to
Duchamp for support in this attack. He discusses the
impact of the readymades on the discipline of art
history in terms of the disturbance their presence
gives to any tidy definition or classification. He
examines the role of the readymade as a paradox in the
history of art and how it functions as a thorn in the
side of prescribed formulas for categorization:

The attempt to define anything is by nature a

conservative activity. Conceptual definitions

are necessarily exclusive: they focus on

particular, selected characteristics at the

expense of actual uniqueness or diversity.

They allow us to order our experience by

grouping certain things together and leaving

others out. If Marcel Duchamp presents an
object that radically questions the borders

of any definition of art, an object that

cannot be ignored because it has been

accepted in practice as art, the conservative
critic seeks to enlarge the borders of theory

and thus absorb the rebellion. While the pec—

uliar, irresolvable nature of the readymade
threatens to undermine this endeavor with the

54

assertion that everything (or, of course,
nothing) is art, it also surprisingly helps
to further the conventional cause. The
strange paradox embodied in the readymade is
that, depending on the interpretation one
accords it, the object can support the
extremes of both anarchist43and staunchly
conservative theories of art.

In his 1975 article "Nothing but an Artist",
Jindrich Chalupecky also perceives the discipline of
art criticism to be potentially detrimental to art.
Chalupecky finds the journalist or critic to be a
danger to art because they tend to taint the public's
vision of modern art. Duchamp's rejection and ultimate
acceptance into the echelons of art history is viewed
to be a case in point regarding art criticism's power
of persuading the public's attitude toward art:

We need a criticism that would reject sensa-
tional generalization and genuinely deal with
the artist, his concrete situation in
concrete history and his reaction to the
times in which he lives. Perhaps there is
nothing to be done but abandon theories and
return in art criticism to that investigation
'in situ' that Leach and his British
colleagues advocate in anthrOpology: instead
of theorizing, to return to the works
themselves. For today we are witnessing an
increasing tendency to escape from facts...
It is 1“) longer the censor, but rather the
theorizing journalist or the theoretician who
is becoming the artist's most dangerous
enemy. One of the most striking examples of
this tendency is the fate of Marcel Duchamp's
works. As long as Dada remained a living
force, Duchamp was considered a fringe
phenomenon, if not an artistic clown. When
Dada was alloted a dignified place in the
history of art, however, Duchamp's work began
to be iafierpreted as the result of historical
forces.

thi

W

m:

‘1.

['6

V2

*5

he

a:

iII

55

The burgeoning of written material executed during
this era carried out its mission through a variety of
approaches as presented in this thesis. However, these
multiple approaches exist only as a result of the need
for self-criticism, the dedication to uncovering,
rediscovering and reassessing. It is only through a
variety of lenses that the many facets of art history,
interpretation and criticism can be thoroughly
explored.

In these representative articles this multiplicity
has been demonstrated by art critics who re-evaluate
their own discipline by reexamining previously
neglected artists and their contribution to art
history, reassessing the impact of the cultural context
on art and criticizing their discipline's role in
determining the standards of taste and historical value
in art.

In this thesis, it was revealed how Duchamp's
example provided a vehicle through which the history of
twentieth-century art and its criticism could be
explored. As previously mentioned, Duchamp's history
had become so intricately connected with that of modern
art, that any reinterpretation of twentieth-century art
immediately involved a reexamination of Duchamp and

vice versa.

t1

56

The call for a reassessment of Duchamp's role. in
the twentieth-century had resulted from the discovery

of Etant Donnés in the late 1960's. The questions that

 

arose from this work's sudden appearance were related
to the challenges which had already been brewing since

the mid-1960's. Etant Donnés had surfaced in an

 

atmosphere that was pre—conditioned to accept the
challenge this work presented to traditional methods
and interpretations of Duchamp's history as well as
that of art in the twentieth-century.

The reassessment and reexamination of Duchamp that
ensued in the 1970's and 1980's as a result of this
combination provided scholars with a means of re-
evaluating the history of art and its criticism. This
attitude which embraces the use of multiple approaches
as a means of self-criticism, even allows for the
existence of approaches once dominant in the pre-Etggt
Donnés era. These former attitudes provide another
means through which the discipline of art criticism can

be explored. These pre-Etant Donnés attitudes present

 

in the post-Etant Donnés era are represented by such

critics as Clement Greenberg (1976)45 and Hilton Kramer

 

(1988).46 IDi promoting their own vision of
twentieth-century art history, they add to the variance
of the new age, although the intent behind their

interpretations is not to join with the new, but rather

57

to criticize it. Nonetheless, the» continuation of
these older attitudes in the 1970's and 1980's reflects
the new era's penchant for self-criticism by the
inclusion. of an older, opposing approach into the

matrix of methods used for critical self-examination.

CONCLUS ION

58

This thesis has demonstrated the changes in the
critical approaches to art between 1945 and the
present. The critical responses to Marcel Duchamp were
utilized as a means to examine such changes due to the
manner in which these responses echo the patterns of
the general critical attitudes within these decades.

In order to effectively demonstrate the changes in
the critical attitudes over time, the review of Duchamp
criticism was begun in the mid 1940's. From this time,
and through the 1950's, the development of America's
attitude towand its new identity as a cultural leader
was revealed.

American scholars of the same period were
concerned with reinforcing this identity and studying
its ties to the European avant-garde. Many of these
members of the European branch had settled in America
after the war years. Their presence here helped build a
new cultural identity for America and also legitimize
this status. Duchamp was immediately recognized as a
member of this group and subsequently became the
subject of a number of retrospective and group
exhibitions.

These exhibitions provided America with an
historical overview of its European heritage and

enabled both artists and scholars to see the European

59

avant-garde's contribution to America's development as
a leading center for the arts, as well as the continua-
tion of the "modern tradition" by way of their presence
in this country.

In examining the European contribution to American
art, scholars were able to identify Duchamp's crucial
role in the development of not only modern American
art, but also twentieth-century art as a whole.

The critical responses to Duchamp during the late
1950's through the mid 1960's reveal a shift in
attitude toward his place in art history; He was
perceived as the forefather of many major movements of
the twentieth-century and was elevated to a heroic,
pre-eminent status. His participation in certain art
movements and events are interpreted as acts of heroic
genius and perceived as crucial to the development of
twentieth-century art. His indifference, apathy, and
ability to shock added to the mystique which surrounded
him and augmented his legendary image.

By the latter half of the 1960's, certain "new"
directions in art began to appear. The leading two,
Minimalism and Conceptualism, challenged previously
held beliefs regarding the role of the artist and the

qualifying standards for art.

60

The younger artists within these two movements
implicitly demanded a reevaluation of the value
originality plays in art and those standards which
determine- its parameters. Both scholars and artists
turned to Duchamp as a standard to support their
arguments concerning originality. Still under a heroic
light, Duchamp, as the autonomous genius in the "modern
tradition", was perceived as the originator of art's
challenge to originality through his oeuvre of mass—
produced objects which thwarted the value placed on the
preciousness of the artist's signature stroke and his
unique, one-of—a-kind product.

Some scholars from the same period criticized this
very system that allowed for Duchamp to become elevated
to the stature of a godhead in the art world. Their
intent was to reveal the fallacies of the heroic
interpretation of the avant-garde as they perceived to
be the case with the deification of Duchamp. The
challenge these critics made to accepted attitudes and
approaches demanded a new means of examining and
interpreting art and initiated the break down of the
dominant system of critical interpretation that had
prevailed throughout the 1940's, 1950's, and early
1960's.

Within this atmosphere of controversy and

conflict, Etant Donnés was discovered, upsetting a

 

61

number of preconceived ideas concerning Duchamp, as
well as thwarting accepted belief in the linear
progression of art history. Shrouded in secrecy for
over twenty, years, _the work contradicted Duchamp's
indifference and apathy toward the traditional easel
painting techniques in which it was rendered. Secondly,
it didn't appear to correspond to the work he had
previously produced. Thirdly, it pre-dated other
tableaux/voyeuristic works done by younger artists by
at least ten years.

The "Pandora's Box" of Etant Donnés evoked the

 

same questions regarding Duchamp that had been
circulating in the latter half of the 1960's regarding
the history of art and its criticism. Since Duchamp's
history and the history of twentieth-century art and
its issues had become so interrelated, the reexamina-
tion of one, consequently, involved that of the other.

Over the next twenty years, art scholars pursued
an intense review of Duchamp and his relationship to
the rest of the twentieth-century. Since he had been
perceived as originating the challenge to original
value in art, that issue and his role as its originator
were scrutinized.

Critics revealed that the political, social,
economic and cultural climate of the early twentieth-

century had, indeed, compelled Duchamp to pursue a

62

direction that negated the values attached to
traditional easel painting. Duchamp's subsequent
theories and works that developed from such influences
involved a technological approach that denied the
uniqueness sought for in the subjective stroke of the
genius/artist and his art product. Moreover, the use
of technology in art criticized, not only the standards
used to qualify art, but also the romanticized value
affixed to the role of the artist and his one-of—a—kind
object.

An examination of content enabled scholars to
extrapolate a new interpretation of Duchamp's works,
the questions he posed and the interrelation of all his
works. Unveiling the content behind Duchamp also
refuted his once accepted heroic status for it revealed
the many sources influential to the development of his
ideas, objects and gestures. Once neglected sketches
and seemingly detached works were examined for their
role in the develOpment of his oeuvre as were his
varied interests in alchemy, language, irony,
sexuality, allegory and philosophy.

Searching for content in Duchamp revealed to
scholar's that he had used a number of non-traditional
sources as part of the mixed—media which gave form to
his ideas. The use of intangible and unorthodox forms

of media demonstrated that such elements are just as

63

integral in the outcome of a work of part. as are
traditional ones. Critics found that Duchamp had
employed mathematical, philosophical and literary
concepts as well as kinetics and cryptology within the
constructs of his oeuvre.

Duchamp's status as an attractive source of
inspiration for the younger artists had continued
throughout the 1970's and 1980's. However, in these
decades the influence of Duchamp was less implied as
had been the case in the 1960's and earlier in the
century. '

Direct references to his motifs, gestures, words,
and overall philosophy could be seen in the content of
art in the 1970's and 1980's. Critics referred to
using Duchamp as a medium or subject as Duchampian
Strategies and perceived this form of quotation as a
means for artists 13: reexamine and critique their own
discipline and its history.

This self-criticism was a dominant feature for the
discipline of art cmiticism as well during the 1970's
and 1980's. The questioning milieu of the latter half
of the 1960's launched the break-down of previously
accepted critical approaches and interpretations of art
and its history. During this period of ideological

upheaval, Etant Donnés was discovered.

 

64

Critics recognized in Etant Donnés the call for a.

 

reexamination of these issues in modern art as well as
key figures in its history (namely Duchamp) who had had
an impact on its develOpment and the criticism that
followed. Their response to this work echoed the
concerns for a reevaluation of art history and the
methods used for its study and interpretation. Thus,
critics turned in upon their own discipline in order to
pursue a reassessment of art history and the role their
discipline played in the course of modern art's
development.

The practice of self-criticism during the 1970's
and 1980's allowed for the use of various approaches in
determining methods for studying art. The perception of
art through multiple lenses provided scholars with a
means to interpret it and its history, as well as a
vehicle to effectively criticize all aspects of their
discipline.

The examination. of originality, content,
non-traditional media, Duchampian Strategies and self—
criticism constitute the means by which critics have
reassessed and reexamined Duchamp and art history.
These concepts are also found to be prevalent in not
only Duchamp's work, but also in the art of the 1970's
and 1980's. The critical responses to art and the

products of this age share similar concerns in their

65

challenge of originality, search for content,
recognition of the significance of unorthodox or
intangible media and the criticism of their own
discipline and its history. These issues, or concerns,
exist in the art and art criticism of the 1970's and
1980's as a result of the challenge to tradition in the
latter half of the 1960's and are reflected by the

critical responses to such enigmatic artists as Marcel

Duchamp.

END NOTES

66

1James Johnson Sweeney, ed., "Eleven EurOpean
Artists in America", Museum of Modern Art Bulletin 13
(l946):2.

2George Heard Hamilton, "Duchamp, Duchamp-
Villon”, Yale Associates Bulletin 13 (March l945):4.

3Dore Ashton, "Duchamp Freres and Soeur at Rose

Fried Gallery", Art Digest 26 (March 15, l952):l6-17.

 

4Nicolas Calas, "The Brothers Duchamp All At
Once, Exhibition at The Guggenheim Museum", Art News 55
(February 1957):24-27 and 56-58.

5Margaret Breunning, "Pots Pranks and Paintings:
Marcel Duchamp And Picabia in Joint Exhibition at Rose
Fried Gallery", Art Digest 28 (December 15, l953):l4.

 

6"Exhibition at Janis", Arts 33 (May 1959)=33-

7George Heard Hamilton, "John Covert: Early
American Modern”, College of Art Journal 12 (Fall
1952):37.

8B. Krasne, "A Marcel Duchamp Profile", Art

Digest 26 (January 15, l952):ll and 24.

91bidel p. 11.

0Lawrence Steefel, Jr., "Marcel Duchamp, 'The
Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even': A
Typographical Version by Richard Hamilton of Marcel
Duchamp's Green Box Review", Art Journal 21 (Fall
1961):46.

 

11H. Wurdeman, "In Pasadena —- A Duchamp

Retrospective", Art in America 51 (June l963):l42.

 

12Cleve Gray, "Retrospective for Marcel Duchamp",
Art in America 53 (February 1965):104.

 

67

13For further‘ study regarding these isses see:

David Antin, "Art and Information, 1, Grey Paint,
Robert Morris", Art News 65 (April l966):22-4 & 56-58:
Mel Bochner, "Primary Structures", Arts Magazine 40
(June l966):32-35(M): William S. Wilson, "Hard
Questions and Soft. Answers", Art. News 68 (November
l969):26-9 & 81—84: Gregory Battcock, ed., Minimal Art:
A Critical Anthology (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1968).

 

 

 

l4Barbara Rose, "ABC Art", Art in America 53

(October 1965):6l.

lsIbideI p. 58.

l6Ibid.

17Nan Rosenthal, "The Six-Day Bicycle Wheel Race:

Multiple Originals", Art in America 53 (October
1965):lOO-105.

18Max Kozloff, "Men and Machines", Artforum 7

(February l969):22-29.

 

19William A. Camfield, "The Machinist Style of
Famous Picabia", Art Bulletin 48 (September-December
l966):309-322.

20Brydon Smith, "Art in Motion" Canadian Art 23

(January l966):66-69.

 

21Richard Wollheim, "Minimal Art", Arts Magazine

39 (January 1965):28.

 

22Richard Kuhns, "Art and Machine", Journal of
Aesthetics & Art Criticism 25 (Spring l967):26l-262.

 

23Ibid., p. 262.

Mahinri Sharp Young, "Dada, Surrealism and Their
Heritage at The Museum of Modern Art, New York", Apollo
88 (July l968):65-66.

25James Burr, "A Jester of Anti—Art", Apollo 83

(June l966):474-476.

68

26Sidney Tillim, "The Mythical History of Modern
Art", Arts Magazine 39 (March 1965):46 & 48.

27Anne d'Harnoncourt, and Walter Hops, Etant

Donnés: 1* la chut d'eau 2* 1e gaz d'eclairaze:
Reflections on a New Work by Marcel Duchamp
(Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1969): p.
51-53.

I

 

28Ibid., p. 7.

29Ibid., p. 2.

30John Elderfield, "High Modern: An Introduction
to Post-Pollock Painting in America", Studio
International 188 (July 1974):5.

31Timothy Binkley, WPiece: Contra. Aesthetics",

Journal _9f Aesthetics and Art Criticism 35 (Spring
l977):265.

BZIbIdoI p. 272.

33Thierry De Duve, "The Readymade and Tube of
Paint", Artforum 24 (May l986):lll.

34"Consistent with the developments of the
twentieth-century, Duchamp has recognized that an
artist may no longer claim to present a static
'picture' but instead must deal with ambiguity and
motion and with the perceiver as socially conditioned
to see selectively, to categorize and interpret... This
film was made in the 1920's... when Freud was very
influential on the arts, so that while Duchamp
radically allowed for the mechanics of varying
perception, he was equally aware of repression and the
externalization process of psychoanalysis." Anette
Michelson, "Anemic Cinema Reflections on an Emblematic
Work", Artforum 12 (October 1973):64-69.

69

35"Despite a flood of explanatory and interpretive
literature about Marcel Duchamp and his art which has
appeared in all kinds of publications, monographs,
catalogues, and periodicals in recent years...almost no
examination has been made of drawings and sketches...
Among these" neglected works, none is more important
than 'Encore a Cet Astre' of late 1911... Widely
recognized as a 'first step' towards the evolution of
the famous 'Nude Descending a Staircase', painted a
month or so after the drawing 'Encore' was completed,
the drawing itself has been disregarded as a work of
art in its own right and, more surprisingly, has been
persistently misread simply as an image by all previous
commentators, including Duchamp himself referring in
retrospect to what it presumably is 'about'." Lawrence
D. Steefel, Jr., "Marcel Duchamp's 'Encore a Cet
Astre': A New Look", Art Journal 36 (Fall l976):23.

 

36"Willoughby Sharp Interviews Jack Burnham", Arts
Magazine 45 (November 1970):23.

37Willis Domingo, "Meaning in the Art of Marcel

Duchamp, Part I", Artforum 10 (December l97l):72-3.

38Craig Adcock, "Geometrical Complication in An
Art of Marcel Duchamp" Arts Magazine 58 (January
l984):105-106.

 

39"It is an indigestible portion of his thought
that perhaps connects with whole areas of indigest-
ibility, at least for an art world that believes in the
primary (and self-sufficiency) of art. It is probably
more reasonable to think of all of Duchamp's pieces as
'delays', obstacles placed in the path of the mind,
temporarily checking it or forcing it out of its former
path and compelling it to seek some partial
realization. They are 'provocations' rather than
objects . . . The concerns with language, with
transparency, with couplings, seem to hover about the
ambiguous implications inherent in the ideas of human
communication and knowledge. These human concerns
stand outside the art world undigested and perhaps not
digestible." David Antin, "Duchamp: The Meal and the
Remainder", Art News 71 (October l972):68-71.

 

70

40Barbara Rose, "Kinetic Solutions to Pictorial

Problems: The Films of Man Ray and Moholy-Nagy",
Artforum 10 (September l97l):68—73.

41Thomas McEvilley, "Empyhrical Thinking (and why

kant can't)", Artforum 27 (Octdber 1988):126-127.

42Brandon Taylor, "Duchamp's Art Legacy", Art and

Artists 15 (June 1980):19.

43Steven Goldsmith, "The Readymades of Marcel
Duchamp: The Ambiguities of an Aesthetic Revolution",
Journal_rof Aesthetics and Art Criticism 42 (Winter
1983):l97.

44Jindrich Chalupecky, "Nothing but In: Artist",
Studio International 189 (January l975):3l.

45Clement Greenberg, "Seminar Six", Arts Magazine
50 (June 1976):90—93.

 

46Hilton Kramer, "Notes on Art at The End of The
Eighties", The World and I, December 1988, pp. 258—263.

 

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85

Tatransky, V. "Exhibition Reviews." Arts Magazine 51
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Binkley, Timothy. "Piece: Contra Aesthetics." Journal
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Agee, W. C. "Patrick Henry Bruce: A Major American
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Roth, Moira. "Marcel Duchamp in America: A Self
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Naumann, Francis. "Cryptography and the Arensberg
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Nauman, Francis. "I Shock Myself: Excerpts from the
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Klein, M. "John Covert and the Arensberg Circle:
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Schwarz, Arturo. "An Interview with Man Ray: 'This is
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Tashjian, Dickran. "Henry Adams and Marcel Duchamp:
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Bohan, Ruth L. "Katherine Sophie Dreier and New York
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Stewart, Patrick L. "The European Art Invasion:
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Mueller, J. "Merce Cunningham's Walkaround Time:
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Power, K. "Duchamp at Pompiport (Centre National d'Art
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Herrmann, R. D. "Johns the Pessimist." Artforum 16
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86

Roth, Moira. "The Aesthetic of Indifference."
Artforum 16 (November 1977):46-53.

Baker, K. "Some Exercises in Slow Perception."
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Wohl, Hellmut. "Beyond the Large Glass. Notes on a
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Krauss, Rosalind. Passages ipModern Sculpture. New
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Ammann, J.C.: Brown, D.: Bucholh, B. H. D.: and Fuchs,
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Clair, Jean. "Duchamp and the Classical
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49.

Green, D. "Readymade Architecture." Art and Artists
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Sandler, I. The New York School: Painters and
Sculptors of the Fifties. New York: London:
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Paz, Octavio. 'The Castle of Purity' Marcel Duchamp;
Appearance Stripped Bare. New York: Seaver Books,
1978.

Tschumi, Bernard. "Architecture and its Double."
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Smith, J. The Arts Betrayed. London: Pitman, 1978.

 

Paz, Octavio. Marcel Duchamp: Appearagce Stripped
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Compton, M.: Danzker, J. A.: Hamilton, G. H.: Millet,
C.: Tisdall, C.: Castelli, T. T.: and Wollheim, R.
Duchamp: Readymades. Vancouver, British
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Bauer, G. H. "Duchamp, Delay and Overlay." Mid-
America 60 (1978):63-68.

Yeh, Susan Fillin. "Charles Sheeler's 'Upper Deck'."
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87

Wittenberg, C. K. "Martin Puryear (Washington, D.C.)."
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Davies, I. "New Reflections on the 'Large Glass': The
Most Logical Sources for Marcel Duchamp's
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Chalupecky, J. "Art and Transcendence." Flash Art
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Damisch, H. "The Duchamp Defense." October 10
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Krauss, Rosalind. "The Naked Bride." Partisan Review
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Burnham, Jack. "An Abstract: Duchamp and Kabalah -

 

Levels of the Mystical Imagination."
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Walters, G. "Marcel Duchamp and Negative Capability:
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l980-1989

Matisse, P. "Some More Nonsense about Duchamp." Art
in America 68 (April l980):41-43.

Taylor, Brandon. "Duchamp's Art Legacy." Art and
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Vasari. "Reading between the Lines." Art News 80
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Burnham, Jack. "Duchamp's Dual Paradise." New Art
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Watts, H. H. Chance: A Perspective on Dada. Ann
Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms
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Upshaw, L. R. "Context as Content: Some Reactionary
Reflections." National Arts Guide 3 (January-
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Marlor, C. S. "A Quest for Independence: The Society
of Independent .Artists." Art. and ,Antiques 4
(March-April 1981):74-81.

Rudinow, J. "Duchamp's Mischief." Critical Inquiry
7 (Summer 1981):747-760.

 

Wieand, J. "Duchamp and the Art World." Critical
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Henderson, Linda D. "Italian Futurism and 'The
Fourth Dimension'." Art Journal 41 (Winter
1981):317-323.

 

Morris, Robert. "American Quartet." Art in America
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Marquis, Alice Goldfarb. Marcel Duchamp: Eros, C'est
la vie a Biography. Troy: The Whitston
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James, C. P. "Reading Art through Duchamp's 'Glass'
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Humble, P. N. "Duchamp's Readymades: Art and
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Chambers, Jack. "Perceptual Realism: North American
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Naumann, Francis. "Man Ray: Early Paintings 1913-1916,
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Wohl, H. "In detail: Marcel Duchamp and the 'Large
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Buchloh, B. H. D. "Allegorical Procedures:
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Feinstein, Roni. "Jasper Johns' Untitled (1972) and
Marcel Duchamp's Bride." Arts Magazine 57
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89

Zekel, Barbara. "The Machine as Metaphor, Model and

 

Microcosm: Technology in American Art, 1915-
1930." Arts Magazine 57 (December 1982):
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Naumann, Francis M. "Affectueusement, Marcel: Ten
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Marcel Duchamp's Travelling Box. Sheffield, England:
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Goldsmith, Steven. "The Readymades of Marcel Duchamp:
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Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 42
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"Cracking Wise [In Advance of a Broken Arm]." Art News
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Tomkins, E. "What the Hand Knows." New Yorker, 59
May 2, 1983, pp. 113-118.

 

Adcock, Craig E. Marcel Duchamp's Notes from the Large
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Matisse, P. Marcel Duchamp: Notes. Boston: G. K.

Shestack, A., ed. Yale University Art Gallery:
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Marcel Duchamp. Sarasota, Florida: John and Mable
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Adcock, Craig E. "Geometrical Complication in the Art
of Marcel Duchamp." Arts Magazine 58 (January
1984):105-109.

 

Caws, Mary Ann. "Partiality and the Ready Maid, or
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255-260.

 

9O

Vaizey, Marina. "The Muses Flee Hitler." Art and
Artists 211 (April 1984):17-18.

Kraft, Barbara. "Guest Speaker: Beatrice Wood.
Marcel's Mischief and Other Matters."
Architectural Digest 41. (May l984):38.

Glassi, Susan G. "Crusader for Modernism." Art News
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Adcock, Craig E. "Conceptionalism in Henri Poincaré
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Samaltanos, Katia. Appollinaire: Catalyst for
Primitivism, Picabia, and Duchamp. Ann Arbor:
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Adrian, D. "Rummaging Among Twentieth Century
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Masheck, Joseph. "Two Blasts-from-the-Past in Picasso
(and, Yes, Marcel, You Too): Notes on Retroactive
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134.

 

Adcock, Craig E. "Why Marcel Duchamp's Old Hat Still
Addresses the Situation to the Nines." Arts
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Reed, D. "The Developing Language of the Readymades."
Art History 8 (June 1985):209-227.

McEvilley, Thomas. "I Think Therefore I Art."
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McClain, J. "Time in The Visual Arts: Lessing and
Modern Criticism." Journal of Aesthetic and Art
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Barvdiello, Gianfranco, and Martin, Henry. Why
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N.Y.: McPherson and Co., 1985.

Adcock, C. "Marcel Duchamp's Approach to New York:
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Norman, D. "Two Conversations: Marcel Duchamp and
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91

Gombrick, E. H. "Image and Word in Twentieth-Century
Art." Word and Image 1 (1985):213-241.

Pincus-Witten, Robert. "Entries: L'Ecole de Nice, A
Missing Book." Arts Magazine 60 (January 1986):
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Cook, A. "The Meta Irony of Marcel Duchamp." Journal
of Aesthetgs and Art Criticism 44 (Spring
l986):263-270.

Karafl, Lorraine. "The Duchamp Brothers: Exhibition
at the Arnold Herstand Gallery, New York." Art
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De Duve, T. "The Ready-Made and the Tube of Paint."
Artforum 24 (May l986):110—121.

Nesbit, Molly. "Ready-Made Originals: The Duchamp
Model." October 37 (Summer l986):60-64.

Troyen, C. "The Open Window and the Empty Chair:
Charles Sheeler's View of New York." American Art
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Judovitz, D. "Anemic Vision in Duchamp: Cinema as
Readymade." Dada/Surrealism 15 (l986):46-57.

"Exhibit at Luhring Augustine and Hoder Gallery, New
York." Art News 86 (April 1987):160-162.

Heartney, E. "Marcel Duchamp." Art News 86
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Perl, J. "Notorious." Vogue, 177 September 1987,
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Edenbaum, S. "Parody and Privacy." Arts Magazine 62
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Reid, Dennis, and Bell, Don. "Marcel Duchamp in
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Schwarz, Arturo. "Marcel Duchamp: The Man, Even."
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Naumann, Francis. "Marcel Duchamp: A reconciliation
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De Duve, Thierry . "Resonances of Duchamp's Visit to
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92

Camfield, William A. "Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain'"
Its History and Aesthetics In The Context of
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Read, Peter. "The 'Tzanck Check' and Related Works by
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105.

 

James, Carol P. "Duchamp's Silent Nbise/Music for the
Deaf." Dada/Surrealism 16 (1987):106-126.

Bauer, George H. "Duchamp's Ubiquitous Puns." Dada/
Surrealism 16 (1987):127-148.

 

Adcock, Craig. "Duchamp's Eroticism: A Mathematical
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Wohl, Hellmut."Duchamp's Etchings of the 'Large Glass'
and 'The Lovers'." Dada/Surrealism 16 (1987):
168-183.

 

Judovitz, Dalia. "Rendezvous with Marcel Duchamp:
'Given'." Dada/Surrealism 16 (1987):184-202.

Diller, Elizabeth and Scofidio, Richard. "A Delay in
Glass: Architectural Performance from a Work by
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Wood, Beatrice. "Marcel." Dada/Surrealism 16
(1987):12—17.

 

Naumann, Francis. "Marcel Duchamp's Letters to Walter
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Surrealism 16 (l987):203—227.

 

Martin, Jean-Hubert. "Marcel Duchamp's 'Des Delices de
Kermoune'." Dada/Surrealism 16 (l987):228-230.

 

Morgan, Robert C. "In the Space of Androgyny." High
Performance 10 (l987):253—262.

 

Olsen, Andrea and Lance. "Whaling the Daylights Out
of Authority: Postmodern Humor and Duchamp."
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Shipe, Timothy. "Marcel Duchamp: A Selective
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93

Lorquin, B. "L'air Duchamp." House and Garden, 160
February 1988, p. 100.

 

Fillin-Yen, Susan. "Three Heads and Other Mysteries:
Man Ray's Photographs of Marcel Duchamp and Joseph
Stella." Arts Magazine 62 (April l988):96-103.

 

Ball, Edward and Knafo, Robert. "The R. Mutt Dossier."
Artforum 27 (October l988):115-ll9.

McEvilley, Thomas. "Empyrhical Thinking (and Why kant
can't)." Artforum 27 (October 1988):120-127.

Kuspit, Donald. "The Modern Fetish." Artforum 27
(October 1988):133-140.

 

Kramer, Hillton. "Notes on Art at the End of the
Eighties." The WOrld and I, December 1988, pp.
258- 263.

GENERAL REFERENCES

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Read, Herbert. "Farewell to Formalism." Art News 51
(Summer 1952):36-39.

Gablik, Suzi. The Progess of Art. London: Thames
and Hudson, 1976.

Mitchell, Timothy F. "Right Angles and Burning
Giraffes: The Content of Modernism." Arts
Magazine 61 (March l987):72-77.

 

Borzello, F., and Rees, A. L., eds. The New Art
History, Atlantic Highlands, N. J.: Humanities
Press International, Inc., 1988.

 

"llliililit