NARRATOR:
In 1914, Marcel Duchamp astounded the art-viewing public with his first ready-made, an ordinary bottle rack purchased at the Samaritaine department store in Paris. This bottle rack is a 1963 replica of the original. Three years later he submitted a signed urinal to an exhibition in New York, creating an instant outcry. He called pieces like this ready-mades, because they were “already made” when he found them—everyday objects that he stripped of their functional context and declared as art. He said:
DUCHAMP (ACTOR):
“A point that I very much want to establish is that the choice of these ready-mades was never dictated by an aesthetic delectation. The choice was based on a reaction of visual indifference. A total absence of good or bad taste. In fact a complete anesthesia.”
NARRATOR:
A provocateur in the best sense of the word, Duchamp spent his entire life questioning accepted ideas about art. He didn’t believe that art had to be beautiful, precious, unique, serious or difficult to make. Instead, he felt that art should be about ideas—and about how the viewer reacts to them:
MARCEL DUCHAMP (ACTOR):
“The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.”
NARRATOR:
Daring and outrageous, Duchamp’s ready-mades had an enormous influence on the development of Pop Art and Conceptual art later in the 20th century.
Bottle Dryer (Bottlerack)
1963 (replica of 1914 original)
Marcel Duchamp (French, 1887-1968)
Not on View
In 1913, Duchamp asked himself, "Can one make a work of art that is not a work of art?" In the case of this readymade, a metal rack for drying wine bottles, the answer is yes. He claimed that an artist's act of choice is sufficient to transform any functional object into a functionless sculpture - hence the term "readymade," a found or manufactured object whose previous purpose is rendered void, owing to the object's new classification by the artist. It has been altered conceptually. For an art world that prized the evidence of the artist's hand and labor, the shock value of the readymade was high. Beyond this, the object has accrued additional associations, including a symbolic relation to the Eiffel Tower and erotic overtones associated with the rack's empty spikes.
Details
- Artist Name: Marcel Duchamp (French, 1887-1968)
- Title: Bottle Dryer (Bottlerack)
- Date: 1963 (replica of 1914 original)
- Medium: Readymade bottle-dryer of galvanized iron
- Dimensions: overall: 29-1/4 x 16 x 16 in. (74.3 x 40.6 x 40.6 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Museum, Gift of Mr. Irving Blum, in memory of the Artist
- Accession Number: P.1968.28
- Copyright: © Association Marcel Duchamp / ADAGP, Paris / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 2017 Reproduction, including downloading of ARS works is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Object Information
Irving Blum, 1968 gift in memory of the artist, to;
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, 1968-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena.
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, 1968-1975;
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena.
Duchamp's Leg
- Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, 1994-11-04 to 1995-02-26
- Miami, Center for the Fine Arts, 1995-12-03 to 1996-03-03
- Joyce, Julie et al., Pasadena to Santa Barbara: A Selected History of Art in Southern California, 1951-1969,2012, p. 120
- Armory Center for the Arts/Art Center College of Design, Radical Past: Contemporary Art & Music in Pasadena, 1960-1974, p. 81
- Ehmcke, Franziska, Der japanische Tee-Weg. Bewßtseinsschulung und Gesamtkunstwerk,no. 89 p. 192
- Herausgegeben von Eric Erfurth, Marcel Duchamp-Flaschentrockner Doxographie,no. 4 pp. 36-37
- Joseph Masheck, Marcel Duchamp in Perspective,2002, fig. 16 p. 21
- Nancy Troy, Couture Culture: Paul Poiret, Modern Art and the Marketing of Fashion,fig. 4.2 pp. 284-285
- Graham, Lanier, Duchamp and Androgyny,fig. 23 p. 39
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