Marcel Duchamp Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Marcel Duchamp - Essay ExampleThe paper Marcel Duchamp focuses on the important figure in the prowess, Marcel Duchamp. Particular to that was the avant-garde movement cognize as the Dadaists and the Surrealists the mission of the early 20th Century avant-garde thus consisted in undermining the idea of arts autonomy in favour of a new merging of art into what he calls the praxis of life. The live being examined in the following, falls within the genre of this movement, and thus, one of the running themes explored throughout this discussion, will address how L.H.O.O.Q. can be tacit as an expression of the avant-garde of his age, and how this fits within the agenda of the Dadaists. In introductory terms, Dadaism is a movement that sought to deconstruct the relationship of art to the business leader structures that financed it, so to speak. By challenging the power relations surrounding the work of art, the further agenda of exposing the essentially bourgeoisie values are likewise a theme that is incorporated into the actual pieces or works of art themselves. In 1915, Marcel Duchamp moved to New York City from Paris. In Duchamps give birth words, he was non moving to New York so much as he was fleeing the art community in Paris which he believed was burdened by the history and traditions of atomic number 63an art. As he states If only America would realize that the art of Europe is finished dead and that America is the country of the art of the future. Look at the skyscrapers Has Europe anything to show more beautiful than these? New York is a work of art, a complete work of art . . . And I believe that the idea of demolishing white-haired buildings, old souvenirs, is fine . . . The dead should not be permitted to be so much stronger than the living. We must learn to forget the past, to live our own lives in our own time. Kalaidjian, Ed., 2005, 195. In terms of the back drop of rejecting history or the tradition of art, the work in fountainhead eventually came to be known as a ready-made. That is, a found object which has been altered or modified in a way, and then presented as a work of art. The work in question APPENDIX A is a reproduction of Leonardo Da Vincis Mona Lisa, which is arguably, the most famous work that is housed in the Louvre in Paris. As far as the modifications go with this finical work, Duchamp has merely added a mustache and titled the work with the initials L.H.O.O.Q.. This title is supposed to be a pun or a play on the cut Elle a chaud au cul and as translated into English, the phrase means She has a hot ass Seigel, 1995, 119 . There is an interesting arguing about the work, that it is germane to the truly meaning of the work itself. One of the important aspects of a work like this, is the very capacity for it to be photographed and reproduced. Indeed, the technique involved with the work in the offset printing sense involves photography insofar as the image itself is initially a photograph of the Mona Lis a photography was crucial in disseminating Duchamp Hopkins, 2004, p. 46. The contemporary twist on the controversy occurred in 2006 when the art critic and editor of Art in America, had to issue an apology for misunderstanding the authenticity and provenance of a reproduction of Duchamps famous work I was wrong in Dada Lives to claim that Francis Picabias bungled 1920 reproduction