22.11.08 - Duchamp - Press kit

Exhibition Marcel Duchamp: a work that is not a work "of art"

Marcel Duchamp: a work that is not a work “of art”

 

 

Fundación Proa opens its new building in La Boca with the exhibition Marcel Duchamp: a work that is not a work “of art”, from November 22nd 2008 until February 1st 2009. This is the first solo exhibition of Marcel Duchamp in Latin America, curated by Elena Filipovic.

The show features 123 pieces of each form of media the artist worked in from 1913 to the end of his life. It takes its title from a question that Marcel Duchamp wrote down one day in 1913: “Can one make works that are not ‘of art’?”

The exhibition begins with the moment when Duchamp wrote his famous question, which coincides with the period in which he began to conceive of mass-produced “ready-made” objects as potential artworks by simply being selected by the artist (an ordinary bottle-drying rack he bought at a local hardware store, for example). The gesture marked a revolution in art history by refusing the idea that art could only be unique and original pieces of carefully crafted painting or sculpture to be looked at.

The curator Elena Filipovic explained that the pieces are organized in groupings that reveal the connections between and the persistent return of such seemingly diverse preoccupations in Duchamp’s work as readymades, optics, perspective, transparency, chance, humor, reproduction, performativity, erotics, and display. In so doing, the exhibition points to the complexity of a set of central ideas in Duchamp’s oeuvre, and their challenge to the very foundations of art, then and still to this day.

Marcel Duchamp: A work that is not a work “of art” brings to Latin America many rare and exceptional works for an historic event possible thanks to loans from major museums and private collections, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Indiana University Art Museum, the Centre Pompidou from Paris and the Moderna Museet from Stockholm, which lent Mariée mise à nu par ses Célibataires, même, known as the Large Glass, considered by many as Duchamp’s magnum opus. The Boîte-en-valise, a “portable museum” with miniature copies of almost every artwork Duchamp has ever made, is also exhibited.

The show is held at the new building of Fundación Proa, which is the result of a daring and ambitious architectural project. It will be made up of four exhibition rooms, a library specialized in art and culture, an auditorium and a coffee shop on the roof top, which will provide one of the most typical and impressive views of the city of Buenos Aires.

The exhibition is supported by Tenaris, Ternium and the Organización Techint. It is sponsored by the Embassy of France in Argentina, Secretaría de Cultura de la Presidencia de la Nación and Ministerio de Cultura del Gobierno de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, and it has been declared “of cultural interest” by the Secretaría de Cultura de la Presidencia de la Nación.

Marcel Duchamp: a work that is not a work “of art”
22.11.08 - 01.02.09

Open Tuesday – Sundays 11am – 7 pm
Mondays closed

Admission
General: $ 10
Students: $ 6
Senior Citizen: $ 3

Curator
Elena Filipovic

Sponsors
Tenaris – Ternium / Organización Techint

Organization and production
Fundación PROA

With the support of  Embajada de Francia en Argentina, Secretaría de Cultura de la Nación, Ministerio de Cultura del Gobierno de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Air France.

 

Exhibition credits

Marcel Duchamp: a work that is not a work “of art”
22.11.08 - 01.02.09

Curator
Elena Filipovic

General Directors
Jorge Helft
Adriana Rosenberg

General Coordinator
Cintia Mezza
Production
Iara Freiberg
Exhibition Design
Caruso-Torricella
architetti, Milan-Paris
Preparators
Sergio Avello
Gisela Korth
Lighting
Matteo Fiore
Didactics
Rodrigo Alonso
Cintia Mezza
Graphic Design
Guillermo Goldschmidt
Jorge Lewis
Laura Escobar
Assistants
Malvina Bali
Andrea Cavalletti
Andrea Rocchi

Guided Tours
Groups up to 25 people.
Duration: 45 minutes.
Tuesdays – Fridays, 3pm and 6 pm
Saturdays and Sundays: 12hrs ,14hrs, 16hrs and 18hrs..

Study Tours
Some works of art will be dealt with in depth:
Fridays 17hrs.
Enroll in advance:
educacion@proa.org
Or at Reception at least one hour in advance.

Guided Tours in English
Duration: 45 minutes
Booking 48 hours in advance:
educacion@proa.org
(0054-11) 4104-1041

Tours for study groups, corporations and institutions
Duration: 45 minutes
Booking in advance:
educacion@proa.org
(0054-11) 4104-1041