Marcel Duchamp Research Paper

As the 20th century progressed, radical developments began to arise in literature and the arts. Among them all, the most prominent was the artistic movement known as Dada. Formed during World War I, Dada was the result of intellectuals expressing the pessimism and despair the war had evoked. Dada’s iconoclastic force challenged traditional assumptions about art and had an enormous impact on later 20th-century conceptual art (864). One of the major advocates of Dada was the notorious and controversial Marcel Duchamp. Even from the beginning of Duchamp’s artistic career he was already making a name for himself. His 1913 Armory Show submission of Nude Descending a Staircase (1912) caused a great uproar and was the most scandalous work of all …show more content…
His most famous example of this can be seen in his work entitled L.H.O.O.Q (1919). The piece includes a color reproduction of the Mona Lisa that Duchamp altered by penciling in a beard and mustache. It comments on Leonardo’s homosexuality and on the sexual ambiguity of the Mona Lisa herself, while also reflecting Duchamp’s interest in creating his own alter ego as a woman (865). The title is included into the actual piece as a way to further perplex and conceptually challenge the viewer in ways that had not been presented before in art. Through L.H.O.O.Q, Duchamp plays with the fine line between creation and destruction, an idea that was often illustrated and made explicit by the Dada movement. He called the kind of work exemplified by L.H.O.O.Q a …show more content…
Duchamp’s most outrageous Ready-Made was a urinal that he submitted as a sculpture to a New York exhibition. He turned the urinal on its back, signed it “R. Mutt”, and titled it Fountain (1917). This piece connects the idea of a fountain and a urinating male, which has been the subject of actual and painted fountains in many works of Western art (865). At the time of its submission Fountain was rejected due to the fact that it was not considered in any way fine art. Yet, today it can be said that Duchamp’s Ready-Mades, such as L.H.O.O.Q and Fountain, are indeed fine art and have a place in art history for their iconoclastic conceptual qualities and suggestion of engaging the mind rather than merely the

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Marcel Duchamp Research Paper

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