Exhibition Idea and Project:
Adriana Rosenberg y Jorge Helft Curator: Elena Filipovic Production: Fundación Proa General Coordinator:
Cintia Mezza Assistant and producer:
Iara Freiberg Exhibition Design:
Caruso - Torricela, Architteti Catalogue Coordinator:
Debbie Grimberg Sponsor: Tenaris - O. Techint
“I’ve had a really wonderful life…
I’ve been lucky, a fantastic luck.
I’ve never spent a day without food and I’ve never been rich.
So everything turned out fine”. Marcel Duchamp
(from Duchamp, biography by Calvin Tomkins,
Anagrama, 1999)
Marcel Duchamp, one of the artists who revolutionized 20th century art, died on October 2nd 1968 in Paris. Four decades later, Fundación Proa opens its new building in La Boca with the exhibition Marcel Duchamp: a work that is not a work “of art”, curated by Elena Filipovic. Duchamp’s first solo show in Latin America will be on display from November 22nd 2008 until February 1st 2009.
Marcel Duchamp was born on July 28th 1887 in Blainville-sur-Crevon, a small town of Ruan, in the northeast of France. This French artist, who became an American citizen, is one of the most outstanding creators of 20th century art.
Friend of Picasso, Matisse and Braque, he distanced himself from them when he presented a piece that revolutionized the intellectual world of his time: a porcelain urinal, which he had bought with some friends in the street and which was presented as a work of art. In the beginning of 1917, Duchamp named the urinal Fountain and submitted it to the Exhibition of the Independents, a show without jury or prizes organized in Paris. As a result of this initiative taken by Duchamp, there was an ensuing controversy about what defines a ‘work of art’.
“Can one make works that are not works ‘of art’?” 91 years after this event, Fundación Proa takes up again that reflection to present Marcel Duchamp’s first solo exhibition in Latin America. Throughout his life, Duchamp wondered if any ordinary object with his signature and shown in a museum could be considered a work of art. That question has been left unanswered. And there lies the revolution of his thought. In keeping with this reflection, his readymades were born, which are a combination or arbitrary arrangement of everyday objects, such as a clothes rack or a bottlerack, but which would become a new and unusual entity after being decontaxtualized and taken away from their primary function.
Marcel Duchamp’s life was hectic. Between 1918 and 1919, apparently escaping from the war, Duchamp lived in Buenos Aires. There is very little information about his stay: only a few snippets that come from letters sent to his friends, colleagues and relatives. When he found out the war was over, he went back to Paris.
Marcel Duchamp was part of the surrealists’ group and with his heterogeneous character, went through different artistic disciplines. He never wanted to be pigeonholed in one activity and he was an innovator in each of his roles: as a sculptor, curator, painter, designer, typographer and cultural manager. He was a close friend of the painter, photographer and writer Man Ray, who depicted him in several occasions. One of his best-known photographs is the one that shows Duchamp dressed as a transvestite, taken in 1921.
In the ‘40s, motivated by the desire to gather the images of all his production, he began a miniature reproduction of all his works and published them inside a suitcase, giving birth to the concept of the ‘portable museum’. In mid 20th century, when art started going along new paths, the figure of Marcel Duchamp became more and more significant. It was him who inaugurated a new concept of artist: the one who challenges the material nature of the artwork. And nowadays, that is the concept which contemporary artists seek to identify themselves with.
In the ‘60s, he was friend and mentor of artists such as Andy Warhol and John Cage, who adopted him as a role model for their search for new artistic ways. His influence was crucial to the development of Dadaism, Surrealism, Pop Art and Conceptual Art, key trends of 20th century art. Even today, Duchamp keeps on being the referent of new artistic expressions.
Marcel Duchamp died at 81 years old in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris, on October 2nd 1968. In accordance to his will, in his headstone in Ruan cemetery the following inscription was engraved: ‘On the other hand, those who die are always the others’. After his death, there were important retrospectives both in the USA and Europe, such as the ones in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Tate Gallery and the Pompidou Centre.
40 years after his death –and 90 years after his stay in Buenos Aires-, Fundación Proa presents for the first time in Lartin America a solo exhibition of Marcel Duchamp. The exhibit Marcel Duchamp: A work that is not a work “of art”, curated by Elena Filipovic, can be seen in the new building of Fundación Proa in La Boca from November 22nd 2008 until February 1st 2009.
The new building of Fundación Proa is the result of a daring and ambitious architectural project. It will be made up of four exhibition rooms, a library specialized in art and culture, an auditorium and a coffee shop on the roof top, which will provide one of the most typical and impressive views of the city of Buenos Aires. The project and management of the remodeling works belong to the Caruso-Torricella studio from Milan, the same studio that ten years ago turned the old building into a landmark of contemporary art in Buenos Aires.
Together with the opening of the exhibition, there will be the First International Colloquium about Marcel Duchamp in Buenos Aires, where the most outstanding thinkers of the duchampian intelligentsia will debate on the influence of the artist’s works. The Colloquium will be coordinated by Paul Franklin, editor-in-chief of the prestigious magazine Etánt donné Marcel Duchamp, yearly publication of the Association pour l'Étude de Marcel Duchamp (Association for the study of Marcel Duchamp)
If you wish to ask for more information on the Exhibition or the Colloquium, images or any other requests for the press, please write to: press@proa.org
