Other Andrew Otwell Art History papers

© Andrew Otwell, 1997

Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Conclusion
Illustrations
Bibliography

Conclusion

Duchamp fell in and out of favor with the avant-garde several times over the course of his long career. Pontus Hulten has traced the way Duchamp's name and his works have been appropriated by various groups.[1] This phenomenon began at least as early as 1915, when Duchamp's first stay in the US had galvanized the members of the Arensberg Circle and stimulated the appearance of the New York Dada movement.[2] Following the Surrealists' attempts at bringing Duchamp into their group, the artist's name was rehabilitated in the 1950's by the so-called "Neo-Dada" movement that included Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, and others.[3] The beginning of Duchamp's "rediscovery" by the art world in that decade was due to a renewed interest in his Dada activities. These artists drew inspiration especially from Duchamp's readymades, using them as the basis for new ideas about sculpture. Robert Motherwell's 1951 anthology The Dada Painters and Poets, and Sidney Janis's 1953 exhibition "Dada 1916-1923" (with which Duchamp assisted) also contributed to the artist's new visibility, often apparently eclipsing the connections Duchamp had formed with Surrealism in the 1940's.

The renewed perception of Duchamp as a Dada artist was influential: William Rubin included an extensive discussion of Duchamp's works in the Dada section of the catalog for the 1968 "Dada and Surrealism, and Their Heritage" show at MOMA. Rubin minimized Duchamp's contacts with Surrealism and even used Breton's conclusions in "Lighthouse of the Bride" to find Dada themes in the artist's works.[4] Even as recently as December 1996, the New York Times called Duchamp the "Artful Dada."[5] By contrast, Alfred Barr's "Fantastic Art, Dada, and Surrealism" exhibition in 1936 had more cautiously (and accurately) labeled Duchamp a "20th century pioneer" independent of strict allegiance with any group.[6]

But if "Neo-Dada's" actions in the 1950's were more visible than the attempts by Breton and Surrealism to bring Duchamp into their own group had been, Surrealism's influence had not entirely waned. The first notable scholarship on Duchamp and his work comes out of the Surrealist group of the 1950's that formed around Breton after his return to Paris in 1946. Robert Lebel, a friend of Breton's since the early 1940's, wrote the first monograph on Duchamp in 1959; Lebel included Breton's "Lighthouse of the Bride" in this book.[7] Marcel Jean, one of the original members of the Surrealist group, featured Duchamp in his 1959 Histoire de la peinture surréaliste.[8]

The situation is much more complex than a brief survey of publications indicates. This thesis has attempted to show that Duchamp's relationship to Surrealism in the 1940's merits further examination by concentrating on the document that stands as one of the most significant points of contact between the artist and Surrealism. The Duchamp View offered in 1945 a carefully programmed picture of Duchamp derived from Breton's ideas and interest in absorbing the artist within Surrealism. To this end, Breton rewrote the history of Futurism by privileging Duchamp's paintings of 1911-1912 as examples of it, despite the fact that the works were largely unrelated to that Italian movement. In this way, Breton positioned Surrealism as the inevitable culmination of the avant-garde, with Duchamp as one of its immediate progenitors and important contributors. Further, Breton's influential analysis of Duchamp's Large Glass in View offers a subtly Surrealist understanding of the work. The essay continues the Surrealist leader's assimilation of Duchamp's achievements into the movement by attaching specifically Surrealist metaphors to the artist, such as that of the "recording instrument." Additionally, Breton made Duchamp's dislike of tradition and conformity into a model for other Surrealists to follow, co-opting in his writings of the 1940's the artist as an example of constant innovation.

Kiesler's "Les Larves d'Imagie d'Henri Robert Marcel Duchamp," perhaps informed by discussions with Duchamp during and after 1942, was the most original interpretation of Duchamp's work in the March 1945 View. Though its connections to Surrealism are relatively slight, Kiesler's participation was clearly important both to Duchamp and to the Surrealists. The Triptych interprets Duchamp's Large Glass and other works in light of Kiesler's own ideas about display and architectural environments, concepts vital to Kiesler's unique aesthetic. By presenting the Large Glass as a kind of "shop window" that looks onto a carefully arranged studio space behind it, Kiesler offered the work to the reader as a literal point of entry into an understanding of Duchamp's works. In the Triptych, Kiesler continued his investigations into the role of the spectator, an idea that would become increasingly important to him in the late 1940's and 1950's. By moving the cut-out flaps and that form the image of the Large Glass, the reader participates in the "completion" of the work. Aspects of the Triptych may also refer to both Duchamp and Kiesler's interest in higher dimensions.[9]

Though Duchamp participated in the production of View and in the exhibitions "First Papers of Surrealism" in New York in 1942 and the "Exposition Internationale du Surréalisme" in 1947 at the Galerie Maeght in Paris, he consistently tried to keep his distance from the movement. In this he was was unlike Kiesler, who leapt energetically into any project offered him and made it his own. Duchamp's comments to Pierre Cabanne in 1967 suggested an indifferent attitude towards group participation. Cabanne asked how could he, "such an independent man, accept the Surrealist draft?" Duchamp responded "It wasn't a draft. I had been borrowed from the ordinary world by the Surrealists. They liked me a lot; Breton liked me a lot; we were very good together."[10]

Duchamp's clever characterization of himself as kind of human readymade or Surrealist objet trouvé ("borrowed from the ordinary world") understates the genuine respect he felt for Surrealism and emphasizes the complexity of his relationship with it. Duchamp told Georges Charbonnier in 1961 that "je ne suis ni surréaliste au sens réel du mot, ni même ambitieux, dans ce sens-lá."[11] In the same interview, though, he stated that Surrealism had lasted longer than other movements because several distinct forms of it had developed, such as literature and painting, under a relatively unified philosophy; this kind of wide scope appealed to Duchamp's dislike of movements formed solely around painting styles.[12] Duchamp's considered assessment of the movement was typical of his statements in interviews; he was aware of the scrutiny his words would receive. His praise of Surrealism, then, should be taken seriously, and should encourage continued study of his interest in the movement and the artists who participated in it.

Chapter 4

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