Marcel Duchamp i is well known in America. Most people have heard of his readymades like the famous or infamous Fontaine, which is, in fact, a public urinal. Stiglitz immortilized the original in a photograph before it disappeared for ever.
The bicycle wheel set on a kitchen stool is a familiar sight for MOMA vistors. Since his first trip to the US in , the artist made multiple visits to that country, avoiding the two World Wars. He acquired American nationality in Volumes have been written about him. In an amazingly short time β since he abandoned art for chess at age 36 β he was able not only to produce art, but also to integrate into it the latest discoveries of science and modern technology.
The Marcel Duchamp exhibit at the Pompidou Center just closed its doors after several successful months. Born in Normandy, Duchamp belonged to a talented family of six children.
The mother was a distant figure, which may explain his alienation from women. The mother stands stern and erect. Strangely enough she seems to be enjoying the concert, although she is deaf.
He had a deadpan sort of humor and provocation was his tool. He enjoyed playing tricks on the Regardeurs viewers , giving wrong titles to his works. To put a moustache and a goatie on Mona Lisa was a virtual iconoclastic gesture and he made it even more outrageous by giving it the title of LHOOQ if the letters are pronounced in French the meaning is shockingly vulgar.
