Duchamp als Kurator: Duchamp as curator

Abstract

"Marcel Duchamp made exhibition practice an important part of his work. Curatorial gestures and concepts that determined the staging of his works and allowed him to move away from canonical definitions of the artist; publications and photographic documentations and of his New York studios; themes, contributions and layout drafts for art magazines; his activity as a consultant, juror and staging curator for exhibitions in the contexts of American Modernism, Dada and Surrealism; the notable influence on important private collections of his time - every conceivable aspect of curating, exhibiting and collecting have gained a qualitatively new artistic dimension in Duchamp's work. While deliberately distancing himself from given structures of artistic work, he approached a concept of curatorial practice as an aesthetic medium that is today well established. According to the pointed thesis of the symposium and the publication here, he was one of the first 'artist curators' and, thus, decisively influenced the reception of his own work as well as the art historical development of exhibition practice. Duchamp gave a new conceptual direction to the multiple possibilities for perception and open perspectives of interpretation of his oeuvre, via the staging, reproduction and multiplication of his own and others' works, which subsequently defined a turn in contemporary art. Principles of exhibition practice became decisive factors in the constitution of a work. This volume compiles the contributions of a symposium at Daimler Art Collection (25./26. April 2017), and is probably the first substantial publication on this subject. It brings together eight essays by renowned authors analyzing the status of Duchamp's varied curatorial gestures"--Publisher's website.