Encounters with the Iconic

Marcel Duchamp Fountain 1917 Tate © Succession Marcel Duchamp/Paris and DACS, London 2007

When visiting the Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia exhibition opening this week, it occurred to me that there is something mind-boggling about encountering an iconic work of art in the flesh. It is indeed flesh that we are referring to because the combination of paint, marble or any other material the artist might have used has become so familiar that it echoes the jolt of recognition usually associated to a friend's face. You feel that you know them if only for having read about them and for having seen reproductions.

But as I discovered when I came face to face with Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 and the Fountain signed R. Mutt, encounters with the seminal works are akin to bumping into a famous actor. There is first a sense of recognition that lingers as you stare at the individual. You recognize him yet you can't quite recall the details of this familiarity. Did you meet him at an opening or was it at your cousin's wedding? What's more, there is a slight sense of inadequacy in this recognition. You know this person, yet they should be taller, slimmer, younger. While all of these thoughts are racing through your mind, he will most likely have the time to walk right by you, not even glancing in your direction. The recognition is unrequited and you're left with the impression that you were snubbed in some obscure way.

The infamous Duchamp works credited for an irrevocable change in the production and understanding of art are quite recognizable, even in a room laden with other works by Man Ray and Picabia. They're familiar because such a cult has been built around them over the years that you've most likely encountered some version of them, and that might also be why the experience of actually seeing them leaves a bit to be desired. Is that urinal really what changed the course of history? Well, not exactly because the Fountain that you can see at Tate is actually a reproduction made in 1964 rather than the 1917 original and because it's not so much the object itself that has changed our understanding of art but rather the surrounding debates it generated.

So here you find yourself, in the presence of what looks like the famous actor without the costume, lighting, make-up and applause that contribute to elevate him above and beyond a mere human status, but it's in fact his stand-in. Where did the illusion go and why is the encounter so disappointing? Is that what Duchamp meant when he stated:
'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.'
Marcel Duchamp, from Session on the Creative Act, Convention of the American Federation of Arts, Houston, Texas, April 1957

Is art powerful only if we invest it with the knowledge of its history and with symbolic transformative powers? If, like myself, you have no answer to these questions, perhaps the Against the Avant-garde? Duchamp, Man Ray, Picabia study day on the 8th of March will be a good platform to discuss your beliefs or disbeliefs in the power of art. I will certainly try to challenge my visions of the not quite sublime encounters with the icons of the avant-garde.

This entry was first published on The Forum