Marcel Duchamp

Term Paper # 107802

Art > Artists

Marcel Duchamp

A look at the life and works of Marcel Duchamp and his contribution to the evolution of contemporary art.

1,116 words () | 5 sources | MLA | 2007 United States

Paper Summary:

Marcel Duchamp, the conceptual artist of the first half of the twentieth century, sparked heated debates during his practices in the art world and had a significant impact on how we view modern art today. This paper examines how Duchamp's evolution as an artist began with roots in traditional methods of paint and Greenberg-sanctioned expression and progressed to satire of the conventional art world, practices, and ways of viewing art. It discusses how the works of Marcel Duchamp mark an important period in art history of dramatic change and movements that, when understood today in their context in history, can be seen as responsible for paving the way for the contemporary art of today.

From the Paper:

"One of Duchamp's most ambitious works was his mixed media The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (also known as The Large Glass), depicting the "bride" in the upper panel with nine "bachelors" looking on from below. Duchamp accompanied the work with his extensive set of working notes about the piece (called the Green Box), the sexuality of the mechanical structures depicted to represent human beings, and the imaginative physics that govern the piece. The piece captures the idea of the mechanical as it depicts a frozen scene being acted out by the "figures" in both panes. The celebration of movement as art is continued in Duchamp's amusement by cracks occurring the work when it was accidentally broken in 1927. "

Sample of Sources Used:

Duchamp's urinal tops art survey. London: BBC News, 2004. Article on-line. Available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4059997.stm.
Girst, Thomas. (Ab)Using Marcel Duchamp: The Concept of the Readymade in Post-War and Contemporary American Art. New York: Tout-Fait, 2003. Journal on-line. Available from http://www.toutfait.com/duchamp.jsp? postid=1844&keyword=#_ednref33
Masheck, Joseph. Marcel Duchamp in Perspective. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1975.
Newman, Michael and Jon Bird, eds. Rewriting Conceptual Art. London: Reaktion Books, 1999.
Weiss, Jeffrey. The Popular Culture of Modern Art; Picasso, Duchamp, and Avant- Gardism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.