Marcel Duchamp | HOW TO SEE “Readymades” with MoMA curator Ann Temkin

One hundred years ago this month, Marcel Duchamp changed the art world forever by unveiling Fountain-a urinal presented as a "readymade" work of art. MoMA Chief Curator Ann Temkin explains how Duchamp forced us to rethink the role of art and the artist.
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[@superfly2449]

Saw the Duchamp bike wheel with my old dad. He walked over and gave it a spin. I think he did the right thing, but I’m glad none of the guards spotted us. (Good thing it wasn’t the urinal)

[@emmalichious08]

Marcel is my great, great, great grandfather. I have been doing research on my family and all of this is so interesting. My grandfather is George Duchamp and it’s all so amazing.

[@FedeVox83]

As an art historian, a teacher of contemporary art and a big “fan” of Duchamp I want to thank you for this AMAZING video: it is just the perfect way to understand the immense contribution of Duchamp

[@budtaylor7923]

The largest collection of art by Marcel Duchamp is in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It's incredible. Also included are works by his siblings, artists as well.

[@empithre]

"When I discovered ready-mades I thought to discourage aesthetics. In Neo-Dada they have taken my ready-mades and found aesthetic beauty in them. I threw the bottle-rack and the urinal into their faces as a challenge and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty"

[@murraykriner9425]

The highlighted piece has long fascinated me from the time I first viewed it in a text book many years ago. I really appreciate your clear and utterly plain explanation of his work being more about the creative process from initial inception to the methodical placement of sundry everyday item assembled in a set manner. The biggest smile was your remarks about just the act of proclamation transforming it into a work that defies not only imagination but any criticisms as well. Would send a critic to a local neighborhood bar to question if they really knew Art at All. Brilliant.

[@wendirogers7814]

This is one of the best of the MoMA videos

[@msarassavargas6185]

when the question "why is it art" comes up. just the discussion if it makes it art. one of the reasons why i love duchamp and Dada

[@idecantwellbarnes6707]

Thank you for this excellent talk. I love my virtual visits to MoMA.

[@karinliane547]

Thanks to introduce the. Ready made , Madame. ! 💯🕯️🌹♥️🌹🕯️💯

[@abyssssbmusic1370]

i kind of like how the bicycle wheel has in common with a unicycle, that it's a seat and a wheel, but without the function of the chair and without the function of the wheel

[@jojovcpb3736]

I do that sometimes when I get really stoned. I just took a huge work of art. It was effortless and magnificent all simultaneously.

[@ap3008]

Duchamp was all about challenging thinking and redefining, rethinking the idea of art. His work was more an exercise of thinking rather than an exercise of craft. The artist as a person with thought processes. The people who cannot see that what he did is an art have a particular and rather traditional definition of art. What is art to you?

[@rickmumma]

This is one of my favorite rooms at MoMA.

[@maxdoubled4800]

Woah. Yall are blowing my mind right now. Keep these videos coming. Yall are great!!!

[@ktmcgoogle7927]

I love duchamp, such a unique take on art and the world

[@annieannie4401]

That was an amazing explanation to the mystery of the idea of readymades. thank U.

[@intelligenceservices]

He wanted to take 'art' off it's high horse, mainly for himself I think, because although he spoke freely about his reasons, the public would only enshrine him as a precious and rare readymade himself.

[@fastfoodart5552]

love art. love dadaisme...love duchamp

[@mikloslegrady965]

Duchamp said that until his time painting was what you could see, that he made it intellectual. Today we know he then stopped painting, Duchamp made no paintings in 40 years after he made painting intellectual. It's when they tell us what to think while looking at work that you know the work is a failure. The point of a real work of art - is that we do not need to be told what to think, a real work speaks volumes at a glance. Think Anish Kapoor. Besides, Duchamp always said the Readymade are not art When asked how he came to choose the Readymade, Duchamp replied, “Please note that I didn’t want to make a work of art out of it … when I put a bicycle wheel on a stool … it was just a distraction. I didn’t have any special reason … or any intention of showing it, or describing anything. The word ‘Readymade’ thrusts itself on me then. It seemed perfect for these things that weren’t works of art, that weren’t sketches, and to which no term of art applies.” Duchamp knew that if a Readymade were art, finding an object would be equivalent to, and as valuable, as months of actual studio work; a troublesome speculation that obviously disturbed him as it has others ever since. At a 1998 Dia panel discussion Rosalind Krauss mentioned that (except for Mondrian and Seurat) Duchamp despised optical art and disliked artisanal work. We would be surprised to read that Shakespeare despised grammar, or Stravinsky loathed musical notes; these are things to respect, not to despise. It does seem like Duchamp was wrong and his ideas destroyed his ability to make art. Now tell me why this is such a wonderful thing. Jasper Johns wrote that Duchamp wanted to kill art “for himself” and we know he did, destroyed his ability to make art. Johns went on to say Duchamp tolerated, even encouraged the mythology around that ‘stopping’, “but it was not like that he said… He spoke of breaking a leg. ‘You didn’t mean to do it’ he said”. It is important to understand that if you say art is not worth making and repeat it often enough as Duchamp did, you will eventually believe it and lose interest in making art. Then, having succeeded in destroying art he poked at Étant donnés for the next twenty years, as if trying to revive a lost relationship.

[@nanwilder2853]

Excuse me Ann, but a “collage” is a 2-Dimensional work on a flat substrate, like a painting. The Ready-mades are 3-Dimensional works, aka assemblages. Not collage, assemblage. I have adored the “artist’s brain” of Marcel DuChamp since I first saw his Ready-mades in Art History books as a teenager, long ago... His intelligence and humor still shine for me, in a world where many, still, do not “get” him. Thank you for your presentation !

[@swicheroo1]

What an unfortunate subtitle: How to see. The whole business of the avant garde art project, and specifically the Dada movement, is to unsee our ways of seeing.

[@deborahbuchanan3238]

I understand Marcel Duchamp was concerned with rebelling against the pretentious, profit driven world art had come to inhabit and the world was in general. He was anti capitalism and war and was trying to create a new reality, way of thinking and these works are an expression of this.

[@eggsarantaduo]

the bike wheel in the room next to the dance by matisse: I bet duchamp would be pretty pissed off by this suggestive connection!

[@BeatrixCor]

After learning about the concept of readymades that Duchamp made, Could we maybe consider the Art Basel Banana by Maurizio Cattelan that became famous a few years ago as a readymade? It seems to fit the general idea of a readymade at least.

[@Johnconno]

I've got the bicycle wheel and stool in the corner of my flat, made it in an hour. It's very...Amusing.

[@KateColors]

Ah, ha! Kind of like my family's sense of humor. I feel right at home.😀

[@jaytamondong2591]

I LOVE MARCEL DUCHAMP ARTS

[@teritowells5168]

Duchamp "readymades" it was about taking a ordinary object and changing it use and turning into art. His best quote was after you have done a few readymades, you have lot of time on your hands.

[@StephenChovanec]

Thank you Ann!

[@vladaoglada]

Is the stool an original one? What a very bright and fresh white paint on it, after 100 years... amazing 🙂 edit: ok, so it is a third version from 1951 😁

[@rhondennis979]

So, if hanging anything in my garage by a piece of string with a catchy title is art, then I've got a museum to fill. 😂

[@gualmicol6845]

Pushing boundaries and extending the scope of art, doing art and presenting it (showcasing, attaching "user instrucion" or whatever) are not necessarily all the same thing. It would be interesting to see what Marcel Duchamp thought and if the critics understood him.

[@Theboywiththedrone]

A new day but same friend 👍👍👍

[@xdszhang]

Was The Fountain dismissed at the beginning, then Duchamp threw a tantrum? He certainly already had that power to force others to bend, He succeeded…until now.

[@janie7242]

Keep looking at the nice painting of Matisse's next room! 🤨

[@혜영-e3f]

Wow..Thanks~ U r so kind~ It's not necessary with another docent~! Duchamp so awesome for me:~)

[@strategysprints]

So well done! Complex Ideas explained easy!

[@rayesposito3470]

ha ha, with all art forms they are open to critics if all abilities to mock, judge, praise.., I'm not to bothered at any negative comments about Duchamp, however, he did these things while everyone else didn't...

[@iaindrennan3552]

great video!

[@ug7000]

Thanks for the upload, very informative. :)

[@MenonDwarka]

I’d love to know how copyright intersects with readymades. Is the design of the original creator transformed by Duchamp’s signature?

[@robertgallegos1161]

Do you Think Duchamp would enjoy this video? Does the Earth beneath Rouen have an eerie rumble beneath the stone and grass?

[@Frühobst]

duchamp is the opposite of beuys. beuys made a piece "the silence of duchamp is overrated". both are pretty big in what they did.

[@timetobenotdo]

Everyone says Duchamp was genius (I don’t disagree) and yet no one ever says anything deep or interesting about his work, ever. It’s the same surface fluff over and over again. Please show me an exception.

[@GaryALucas]

I thought Peter Greenaway suggested something similar with his frames. That anything seen through them could be considered art. the exhibit being a type of frame. John Cage also suggested something similar with his '4' 33" ' , any environmental sound was the piece. I interpret that as art is in the mind, yes, the idea is the art, in that case. And of course Marcel Duchamp initiated this train of thought, in the modern era.

[@JP-ij7rp]

Thank your for this video! So happy to have found you in my algorithm. Question...was Marcel Duchamp the pioneer of what we call memes today? Was he a troll? Was it all about being ironic? Or was it just a parody? I would appreciate your feedback

[@martynwonder]

But why do i feel like the best conseptual artists still rely on perceptual aesthetics ?

[@Sundayjean]

It’s as if, in the moment of creation he had a delightful sense of humor.

[@hartmannvondunaburg6768]

He was really a great one, he made very earlier important #TimePhoneHacks

[@tatsurofidens]

🙏

[@DrRonArt]

Marcel Duchamp liked the idea that an idea could be a work of visual art. ~Ann Temkin

[@robertmcpartland3638]

Really enjoyable talk, but (with considerable hindsight), his work might be better understood today as a green button for the 20th century cartesian, conceptualised, unembodied mind; witty and seductive to the "intellect" (non visual left brain) but nihilistic - The Brides etc. and The Illuminating Gas (his last work) He was a charming, urbane and a (financial..maybe more) fox who carved his own place in art in response to rejection by his peers, but who personally preferred chess.

[@stefanoguseli5975]

Yes

[@jorgesicre8268]

the reason my art is remarkable is because people remark about it. Whether it was my solo at Cafe Largo or the Long Beach World Trade center where it was reported to me, or the running commentary on the video on Video or all the people honking at me as I worked on public art. People comment on this bloke too; I have a postcard of him I picked up in a Hollywood club. He's holding a briefcase or something that someone superimposed, "I am not a role model" on it!

[@jorgesicre8268]

I meant Vimeo

[@暗香晚风]

[@TheBassHeavy]

I'd love to see this work in real life.

[@karinliane547]

Is it. Art , or does it means real. Life ? 🌈🕯️♥️🌹♥️🕯️🌈.

[@doghouse100148]

Do you think that he might have seen the snow shovel first during the summer of 1912 in the house of the BRIDE.? 👉👀👈

[@christianegonbarnthaler1426]

super

[@roggo_x]

Muy buen video, gracias por la traduccion al español desde argentina

[@kennethmatthew9638]

thats what is called obscuritism, a series of articulate phrases to discribe what is in observed reality as; a wheel a fucking wheel

[@priscillabourne9732]

why is Duchamp's alter ego's name wrong?

[@jorgesicre8268]

Nude Descending a Staircase is a masterpiece, but it's an easel painting. As TS Eliot said, "that art is greatest which remains closest to tradition." Anyone can fill a gallery floor with sand. It takes genius to invent a new system of perspective, as I have done. Why do you think a book like Tom Wolf's 'The Painted Word' made the New York Times best seller list? The people have spoken. Also, my art isn't bankrolled by the CIA!

[@doylesaylor]

Interesting to bring up DuChamp as anti retinal. He’s not saying much if the ready mades are just something to look at. Let’s take a moment to investigate him saying he is going out side painting in the sort of conceptual realm. This is asserting a sense of the meaning of mental activity. But also very vague. So while the objects look real DuChamp is not especially concerned to really say what exactly contemplation is. Rather he claims as ‘important’ a manufactured object can be aestheticized. Sort of like a street photographer goes out and shoots anything and it’s art. The street photographer is using a realism structure to do ‘anything’. Duchamp is really saying consumer items that people accumulate are art as they pile up in a space. Since he was inside the commercial art market he got paid generously for his work, but claiming the average persons pile of consumers ‘readymades’ is art for sale would not generate an income. So besides being ‘conceptual’ the ‘art’ is really just being part of the market place. However, painting has two important market place transcending influences. Realist painting and abstraction. Conceptually DuChamp can’t account for why abstract art suddenly appeared in the 19th century out of realist painting. So his cubist work is superficial copying efforts. Nor can DuChamp who is saying the ‘concept’ is the art able to distinguish some sort of antirealism boundary to that. I mean a concept is a mental act outside vision, and DuChamp can’t say if his concept of art is real or antirealism. That is to my mind a severe critique of his claim about readymades are important. They can’t be used in a ‘big important’ way.

[@krisscanlon4051]

I enjoy Marcel Duchamp simply because he takes the piss out of pretentious art. The Dada movement means the world to me. When I wasn't living very right it was enjoyment in a land of addicted misery. I've gotten through that misery but Marcel remains.

[@mauriciocruzvideo]

I find it incredible that this curator (of the moma) is wrong in almost everything she says; time goes by and commonplaces keep the central idea of the readymade mummified what's more, that one with the wheel is the poorer version if compared with the original (I mean the first one)

[@kristinab1078]

I tried. I really did, but I find his art uninspiring. However, the Matisse in the background...my eye went right to it!

[@johnmackenzie3030]

This wheel is not a true ready made - it has been bolted onto a white seat. The snow shovel is a pure ready made. And what an awesome snow shovel.

[@03-abhinavrijit90]

kya scam hai bc

[@veritasdude1358]

I also have a urinal that I threw away while renovating. Wait! ... was that also ART?! 😂😂🤢🤢

[@eloise4484]

They are still as dull as dishwater a hundred years on...

[@alexbotkin3182]

I think that Duchamp is simply a thief. Every "Readymade" was made by someone who regarded the work and craft as a work of art. Each of these is designed or created by a person or perhaps a "collective", to use a currently artsy term, for whom the object represented an achievement of intellect, craft, and insight. By declaring himself as the arbiter of what is art he has stolen their talent and work and presented it as his own.

[@puddingtapioca1060]

He hung up a shovel, called it art, and now people are calling it revolutionary .....

[@johnbrocado1083]

youre not good at much are you?

[@waterglas21]

Duchamp is a philosopher not an artist!!

[@dorianvidz]

hubris

[@mojiri]

Bad Art contest : Picasso, Munch, Duchamp participated???

[@Doppe1ganger]

Intellectually one of the greats, but not my thing. That is to say, i very much respect what he meant for art, but ultimately i reject it because there's no soul to it, i find it boring, kind of like a stupid joke, once you understand the pun the joke is done.

[@katrostorm3075]

Everything and anything can be art if you say it is... My question is - What is not art?

[@nanwilder2853]

KS : Murder and State-murder, War, are not Art, obviously... Barbaric destruction = the opposite of Art/creativity.

[@benjaminrivera3259]

🤦‍♂️

[@ninasimpson7669]

Duchamp was not capable of making great paintings and naturally, he abandoned this rather than keep producing inferior paintings.

[@peterfoerderer8224]

Why bother with this when you can go to Walmart, buy a few items and call it art.

[@kekthemaster]

This is garbage

[@CatharticCreation]

seems like he was an artistic hack to me. least fave art era by far. ugly and boring art.

Duchamp was a very lazy artist and he didn't like to get dirty his hands...

[@pedromarques3539]

Duchamp sai the ready made is the future Eff painting...and the whole world is shouting today painting is dead! Some rich white bourgeois payed a million dollars for a Duchamp and it becomes a ridiculous trend. Duchamp was great no doubt but anyone applying the same concept is simply a practice of plagiarism.

[@musikalitet]

i just dont like art. i find it so stupid..... i love flowers as art the power of nature and...