The groundbreaking artist Marcel Duchamp, who upended the art world with his 1917 piece of an inverted urinal, is being honored with a major exhibition in New York. Although born in France, Duchamp spent the last 25 years of his life in the city, making this solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art his first in over half a century. The show opened to the public last weekend and features insights from Duchamp expert Thierry de Duve on how the artist reshaped art history.
One cannot forget Duchamp’s notorious ‘Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2’ shown at the 1912 Armory Show, which caused a stir in the American press, some of which is showcased in the MoMA exhibition. This week, we’re continuing to engage with art discourse through a response by GRIT, an artist collective from Appalachian communities, to a review of Fia Baström’s exhibit at the Queens Museum. Additionally, Aruna D’Souza offers her perspective on Josh Kline’s essay about the challenges facing young artists in New York, published in October.
As some debates in art endure, they often do so for good reason. De Duve notes, “Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ delivers the message that we no longer exist in an art sphere where being an artist is restricted to traditional roles such as painter, sculptor, or poet.” This evolution in understanding what constitutes art continues to influence and inspire.
