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)
On View
In 1914, Marcel Duchamp purchased a bottle dryer from a department store in Paris, signed it and presented it as an original sculpture. Calling this new type of artwork a “readymade,” he claimed that any “ordinary object [could be] elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist.” From shovels to hat racks and even urinals, Duchamp’s readymades emphasize the underlying formal qualities of everyday objects and challenge longstanding definitions of art, authenticity and authorship. With its flared base and iron hoops, this Bottle Dryer, a replica of the 1914 version, might echo the shape of a skirt or a miniature Eiffel Tower. It may even carry provocative or erotic undertones, a frequent feature of the artist’s work. Duchamp upended hierarchies between the mundane, commercial and unique throughout his career, widening the landscape for subsequent Pop, Conceptual and Performance Art movements.
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: © Succession Marcel Duchamp / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
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
Impossible Realities: Marcel Duchamp and the Surrealist Tradition
- Norton Simon Museum, 1991-07-04 to 1992-03-08
Marcel Duchamp Festival
- Irvine, University of California Irivine, Art Gallery, 1970-11-06 to 1971-12-01
Recent Acquisitions, 1969
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1969-11-24 to 1970-01-18
Marcel Duchamp: A Retrospective Exhibition
- Pasadena Art Museum, 1963-10-08 to 1963-11-03
Marcel Duchamp Redux
- Norton Simon Museum, 2008-04-25 to 2008-12-08
Pasadena to Santa Barbara: A Selected History of Art in Southern California, 1951-1969
- Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2012-02-11 to 2012-05-06
Lost but Found: Assemblage, Collage and Sculpture, 1920-2002
- Norton Simon Museum, 2004-11-05 to 2005-03-28
Duchamp to Pop
- Norton Simon Museum, 2016-03-04 to 2016-08-29
Radical Past: Contemporary Art and Music in Pasadena, 1960-1974
- Norton Simon Museum, 1999-02-07 to 1999-06-06
- Armory Center for the Arts, 1999-02-07 to 1999-04-11
- Art Center College of Design (Pasadena, Calif.), 1999-02-07 to 1999-04-25
Permanent and Loan Collection, 1973
- Pasadena Museum of Modern Art, 1973-01-30 to 1973-12-31
- Ehmcke, Franziska, Der japanische Tee-Weg. Bewßtseinsschulung und Gesamtkunstwerk, 1991, no. 89 p. 192
- Herausgegeben von Eric Erfurth, Marcel Duchamp-Flaschentrockner Doxographie, 1997, no. 4 pp. 36-37
- Armory Center for the Arts/Art Center College of Design, Radical Past: Contemporary Art & Music in Pasadena, 1960-1974, 1999, p. 81
- Joseph Masheck, Marcel Duchamp in Perspective, 2002, fig. 16 p. 21
- Nancy Troy, Couture Culture: Paul Poiret, Modern Art and the Marketing of Fashion, 2002, fig. 4.2 pp. 284-285
- Graham, Lanier, Duchamp and Androgyny, 2003, fig. 23 p. 39
- Joyce, Julie et al., Pasadena to Santa Barbara: A Selected History of Art in Southern California, 1951-1969, 2012, p. 120
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