0:00:01.511,0:00:04.932 (lively music) 0:00:04.932,0:00:06.331 Voiceover: We wanted to talk about Marcel Duchamp 0:00:06.331,0:00:09.327 and we're looking at a really famous painting 0:00:09.327,0:00:10.800 of his that caused a huge scandal. 0:00:10.800,0:00:16.390 It's called "Nude Descending a Staircase 2," and it dates to 1912. 0:00:16.390,0:00:18.875 It was shown, if I remember correctly, 0:00:18.875,0:00:20.975 in the Armory exhibition in New York, 0:00:20.975,0:00:24.951 and the press just made wild fun of it. 0:00:24.951,0:00:28.556 Of course, what we're seeing is this kind of funny Cubism 0:00:28.556,0:00:32.500 that's linked to the way in which the Futurists thought of Cubism, 0:00:32.500,0:00:34.670 that is really about the issue of motion itself - 0:00:34.670,0:00:39.270 the movement of the planes of space as the figure is moving down. 0:00:39.270,0:00:42.661 It has a wonderful mechanical quality. 0:00:42.661,0:00:43.810 Some art historians have looked at it 0:00:43.810,0:00:46.387 and said that this was involved with strobe photography 0:00:46.387,0:00:48.963 and influenced by some of those ideas. 0:00:48.963,0:00:51.793 Nevertheless, it's still a painting. 0:00:51.793,0:00:55.106 Voiceover: It still fits within that tradition of painting 0:00:55.106,0:00:57.539 that really begins in the Renaissance, 0:00:57.539,0:01:00.370 and continues pretty much unabated for 500 years. 0:01:00.370,0:01:04.771 That's right!, and we would call this avant-garde, but it's still oil paint. 0:01:04.771,0:01:05.875 It's on canvas. 0:01:05.875,0:01:06.796 It's made by hand. 0:01:06.796,0:01:07.958 It's made by the artist. 0:01:07.958,0:01:10.219 It's rendered and so, you're right. 0:01:10.219,0:01:14.134 It's still very firmly embedded in this very old tradition. 0:01:14.134,0:01:15.449 How radical is that? 0:01:15.449,0:01:20.591 That's 1912; let's see what happens just a year later. 0:01:20.591,0:01:23.340 It's two objects made into one. 0:01:23.340,0:01:27.819 It's an assisted ready-made, as Duchamp will later call them. 0:01:27.819,0:01:31.930 It's called "Bicycle Wheel," and it's a bicycle wheel 0:01:31.930,0:01:35.033 and [headset] and fork that's been stuck into a hole 0:01:35.033,0:01:37.763 that's been drilled into the top of a stool. 0:01:37.763,0:01:43.166 Duchamp has taken these two ready-made objects in 1913, 0:01:43.166,0:01:47.207 stuck them together and asked us to look at them 0:01:47.207,0:01:49.834 at them in a very different way than we would have looked 0:01:49.834,0:01:51.687 at them before he had done this. 0:01:51.687,0:01:53.031 Voiceover: I'm going to say what I think 0:01:53.031,0:01:56.254 a lot of people feel when they look at this, 0:01:56.254,0:01:57.066 which is - 0:01:57.097,0:01:58.113 Voiceover: How is this art? 0:01:58.113,0:01:58.113 Voiceover: Yes. 0:01:58.113,0:01:59.739 Voiceover: I think in a funny way, we're going 0:01:59.739,0:02:01.932 to come back to your question, "How is this art?" 0:02:01.932,0:02:03.390 And we're going to find the answer 0:02:03.390,0:02:05.238 in the very question you're asking. 0:02:05.238,0:02:09.566 What I mean to say is Duchamp is asking us 0:02:09.566,0:02:12.450 to think about how we define what a work of art is. 0:02:12.450,0:02:16.431 The very act of questioning becomes a part of the content. 0:02:16.431,0:02:17.865 But, there's more here. 0:02:17.865,0:02:20.233 One of the things that I think Duchamp wants us 0:02:20.233,0:02:23.247 to think about is what it is that we want from a work of art. 0:02:23.247,0:02:25.010 Voiceover: Why is that an important question? 0:02:25.010,0:02:26.255 Voiceover: I think it's a question 0:02:26.255,0:02:27.933 that's been asked throughout the avant-garde. 0:02:27.933,0:02:29.553 Let's go back to Manet for a moment. 0:02:29.553,0:02:33.873 Manet's rejecting the clarity, the precision 0:02:33.873,0:02:37.267 of the academic tradition of the salon, right? 0:02:37.267,0:02:40.390 He's forcing us to be aware of the roughness 0:02:40.390,0:02:42.726 and the physicality of his paint, 0:02:42.726,0:02:44.783 even as he's rendering something, 0:02:44.783,0:02:47.049 as opposed to creating something that's more transparent. 0:02:47.049,0:02:51.106 Even Manet is starting to ask us, 0:02:51.106,0:02:54.870 "Is art simply a kind of highly-proficient, 0:02:54.870,0:02:57.850 "technically perfect act of rendering?" 0:02:57.850,0:03:01.211 if it's simply skill, or must art also encompass, 0:03:01.211,0:03:02.753 and of course, all great art does, 0:03:02.753,0:03:07.543 a conceptual element, and what do we actually privilege? 0:03:07.543,0:03:12.716 now, in the 20th century, when our culture - and this is, I think, a really critical point - 0:03:12.716,0:03:15.477 our culture is not a culture of the hand-made. 0:03:15.477,0:03:18.631 Our culture is now a culture of the mass-produced. 0:03:18.631,0:03:22.154 Painting, although it's beautiful and remains vital, 0:03:22.154,0:03:24.592 is in some ways really anachronistic. 0:03:24.592,0:03:28.150 We live in a society now where everything - 0:03:28.150,0:03:30.179 virtually everything - is mass-produced. 0:03:30.179,0:03:34.687 Voiceover: And things that are unique and hand-produced are very, very rare. 0:03:34.687,0:03:35.869 Voiceover: Those are the exceptions, 0:03:35.869,0:03:37.187 and we privilege them because they are. 0:03:37.187,0:03:40.236 Voiceover: But shouldn't art be special like that? 0:03:40.236,0:03:43.993 Voiceover: Can art be special, but speak to our age - 0:03:43.993,0:03:48.586 our age of mass-production, our age of factory-made object? 0:03:48.586,0:03:52.427 During the 18th century, during the 17th century, 0:03:52.427,0:03:55.548 making a painting by hand is making a painting 0:03:55.548,0:03:57.901 the way we made virtually everything else. 0:03:57.901,0:03:59.375 Garments were made by hand. 0:03:59.375,0:04:01.170 Furniture was made by hand. 0:04:01.170,0:04:04.921 We live now in a culture where almost everything 0:04:04.921,0:04:08.434 is made by some sort of mechanical production. 0:04:08.434,0:04:11.671 Doesn't art have a responsibility, in order 0:04:11.671,0:04:16.872 to be legitimate, to actually reflect the reality of our moment, 0:04:16.872,0:04:19.611 even if it means that we're giving up something 0:04:19.611,0:04:22.275 that we have a kind of nostalgic love for? 0:04:22.275,0:04:25.327 When Duchamp takes this bicycle wheel, 0:04:25.327,0:04:28.112 which he didn't make, when he takes this stool 0:04:28.112,0:04:29.273 that was made in a factory, 0:04:29.273,0:04:31.602 and he puts them together, forcing us, 0:04:31.602,0:04:33.871 through almost a kind of alchemical process, 0:04:33.871,0:04:38.469 to transform these simple objects that we never really notice 0:04:38.469,0:04:41.614 into something that is for the contemplative. 0:04:41.614,0:04:43.301 Voiceover: Does that mean that one of the definitions 0:04:43.301,0:04:48.476 of art now is to make a [unintelligible] that were all around us anew? 0:04:48.476,0:04:50.065 Voiceover: Matisse was once asked - 0:04:50.065,0:04:51.651 and this is a pretty famous quote - 0:04:51.651,0:04:53.665 he was once asked, "What makes a great artist?" 0:04:53.665,0:04:56.482 Matisse's answer was, "A great artist 0:04:56.482,0:04:58.370 "is someone who allows us to see the world 0:04:58.370,0:05:00.665 "in a way that we had never seen it before." 0:05:00.665,0:05:03.275 So, is art actually then the product 0:05:03.275,0:05:05.398 of somebody's technical skill? 0:05:05.398,0:05:08.096 Is it a product of somebody's ability 0:05:08.096,0:05:10.366 to render, and how legitimate is that now 0:05:10.366,0:05:11.756 in the age of photography? 0:05:11.756,0:05:15.671 Or, is art really embedded in the conceptual? 0:05:15.671,0:05:17.743 On the other hand, at the same time, 0:05:17.743,0:05:20.611 this is absurd, and Duchamp loved that it was absurd. 0:05:20.611,0:05:21.911 This is Dada. 0:05:21.911,0:05:23.660 It's a kind of anti-art. 0:05:23.656,0:05:26.297 It's in some ways a very aggressive stance against art. 0:05:26.297,0:05:27.803 Let's just go forward for a moment. 0:05:27.803,0:05:29.572 I want to show you something that's even more pure. 0:05:29.572,0:05:31.405 This is, I think, fabulous. 0:05:31.405,0:05:32.599 This is two years later. 0:05:32.599,0:05:33.866 This is 1915. 0:05:33.866,0:05:36.431 Duchamp has gone to a hardware store, 0:05:36.431,0:05:39.203 purchased a snow shovel, brought it back 0:05:39.203,0:05:42.622 to this studio, and decided that he would give it a name, 0:05:42.622,0:05:45.483 which will conjure up a whole sort of narrative. 0:05:45.483,0:05:48.349 It's called, "In Advance of a Broken Arm." 0:05:48.427,0:05:50.233 He's taken this ready-made - 0:05:50.233,0:05:51.294 Voiceover: You know, as soon as you said that, 0:05:51.294,0:05:53.684 I had this vision of someone shoveling snow, 0:05:53.684,0:05:56.568 out on the front stoop of their house. 0:05:56.568,0:05:59.073 Voiceover: I continue that narrative. 0:05:59.073,0:06:00.727 I see that person slipping on the ice, 0:06:00.727,0:06:01.972 and then breaking their arm. 0:06:01.972,0:06:04.400 What Duchamp has done is he said, 0:06:04.400,0:06:05.140 "This is not for use. 0:06:05.140,0:06:06.775 "This is now a narrative tool. 0:06:06.775,0:06:09.600 "We're constructing something that is 0:06:09.600,0:06:11.258 "to be thought of and looked at, 0:06:11.258,0:06:12.830 "as opposed to used." 0:06:12.830,0:06:14.983 But, it's such an absurd object. 0:06:14.983,0:06:16.439 Voiceover: We have some idea in our culture 0:06:16.439,0:06:19.894 that art is different from things that we use. 0:06:19.894,0:06:23.189 Art is not utilitarian, which is an odd thing to say 0:06:23.189,0:06:25.358 because to me, if we just go back 0:06:25.358,0:06:26.655 to medieval art, artists in the Renaissance - 0:06:26.655,0:06:27.743 Voiceover: It's always utilitarian. 0:06:27.743,0:06:29.093 Voiceover: It's always incredibly - 0:06:29.093,0:06:33.849 It only becomes not utilitarian in the 19th or 18th century. 0:06:33.864,0:06:36.351 Voiceover: Let's say that this snow shovel, 0:06:36.351,0:06:38.468 which is very famous, this sculpture, 0:06:38.468,0:06:40.262 "In Advance of a Broken Arm," let's say 0:06:40.262,0:06:42.429 it went up for auction at one of the big auction houses - 0:06:42.429,0:06:43.757 a Christie's, a Sotheby's, or something, right? 0:06:43.757,0:06:46.639 I'm guessing but let's say the opening bid 0:06:46.639,0:06:48.335 was one point five million dollars. 0:06:48.335,0:06:51.174 Then, let's say this was taking place in New York, 0:06:51.174,0:06:53.468 and you walk out of the showroom while the bidding was starting. 0:06:53.468,0:06:55.960 You walk over to Lexington Avenue and you buy yourself a snow shovel, 0:06:55.960,0:06:58.348 which is, on the upper East Side, forty dollars. 0:06:58.348,0:07:00.506 Somehow, you get it past the guards 0:07:00.506,0:07:01.837 and you walk back into the showroom, 0:07:01.837,0:07:03.841 and you've got the very same snow shovel 0:07:03.841,0:07:07.753 that's being auctioned off for one point five million dollars up on the stage. 0:07:07.753,0:07:08.685 Is there a difference? 0:07:08.685,0:07:10.765 It's a really interesting issue and, actually, 0:07:10.765,0:07:13.013 that scenario that I just offered suggests 0:07:13.013,0:07:16.062 that Duchamp failed, and let me explain. 0:07:16.092,0:07:18.845 Dada itself is embedded in the artist's reaction 0:07:18.845,0:07:21.371 against the violence of the First World War, to some extent. 0:07:21.371,0:07:23.201 Voiceover: And against the bourgeois culture. 0:07:23.201,0:07:25.438 Voiceover: One of the indictments that the artist made 0:07:25.438,0:07:28.206 is that art had been one of the props 0:07:28.206,0:07:30.645 by which bourgeois culture had maintained itself. 0:07:30.645,0:07:33.119 Now, remember the First World War was not fought 0:07:33.119,0:07:34.225 for ideological reasons. 0:07:34.225,0:07:36.335 It was really fought largely for grief, 0:07:36.335,0:07:38.398 national grief, personal grief, et cetera. 0:07:38.398,0:07:41.369 It was unprecedented violence of the First World War. 0:07:41.369,0:07:45.679 We have the Dada artists thinking about 0:07:45.679,0:07:48.903 how they can create an art that completely undermines 0:07:48.903,0:07:52.871 that notion of art helping to establish hierarchical status. 0:07:52.871,0:07:54.939 Voiceover: Uh oh, but then it's being sold at Christie's. 0:07:54.939,0:07:58.153 Voiceover: That's why I said, in a sense that would suggest 0:07:58.153,0:08:00.299 that Duchamp failed, but what Duchamp is 0:08:00.299,0:08:02.290 trying to do is subvert capitalism, to some extent, 0:08:02.290,0:08:03.734 as it relates to art here. 0:08:03.734,0:08:05.804 That is to say Duchamp is saying, 0:08:05.804,0:08:08.095 "I'm going to make art out of something 0:08:08.095,0:08:10.133 "that is absolutely ordinary." 0:08:10.133,0:08:12.056 Can that be done? 0:08:12.056,0:08:13.928 Must art be singular and precious? 0:08:13.928,0:08:16.241 You know, you walk into somebody's house, 0:08:16.241,0:08:17.602 and if they have an original painting 0:08:17.602,0:08:19.054 by Picasso hanging on the wall, 0:08:19.054,0:08:22.138 that says a lot about their status in our society. 0:08:22.138,0:08:24.592 But if somebody has a snow shovel, maybe not. 0:08:24.592,0:08:27.419 This is two years later again; this is 1917. 0:08:27.419,0:08:30.218 Another ready-made and, of course, it's a urinal - 0:08:30.218,0:08:32.562 Voiceover: An upside-down urinal. 0:08:32.562,0:08:34.561 Voiceover: Well, he takes it, he shifts it 90 degrees. 0:08:34.561,0:08:38.437 Duchamp actually submits it to an exhibition that was an unjuried show, 0:08:38.437,0:08:41.697 and you have to remember that in the 19th and early 20 centures, 0:08:41.697,0:08:44.928 many art exhibitions were juried and were relatively conservative. 0:08:44.928,0:08:49.281 Here was what was supposed to be a radical organization 0:08:49.281,0:08:51.995 that was going to show anything and not have a juried exhibition. 0:08:51.995,0:08:54.657 Duchamp submits this and it's rejected. 0:08:54.657,0:08:57.158 Voiceover: It looks like there's a signature on it. 0:08:57.158,0:08:59.183 Voiceover: Well, he signed it, "R. Mutt," 0:08:59.183,0:09:02.037 and there's some theories about why he signs it, "R. Mutt." 0:09:02.037,0:09:03.563 Voiceover: He seems like a very silly man. 0:09:03.563,0:09:06.437 Voiceover: I think that there was a kind of ludicrousness to it, 0:09:06.437,0:09:08.895 and I think he took a certain joy in the absurd. 0:09:08.895,0:09:11.868 There's no question, and I think that that's pretty clear 0:09:11.868,0:09:14.608 in the way he would present himself to the public, 0:09:14.608,0:09:19.313 often in drag, representing his alter ego, Rrose Selavy. 0:09:19.313,0:09:21.422 Voiceover: This is Duchamp himself. 0:09:21.422,0:09:22.774 Voiceover: This is the artist himself. 0:09:22.774,0:09:25.391 Voiceover: He's really just interested in play. 0:09:25.391,0:09:27.277 Voiceover: He's interested in - 0:09:27.277,0:09:30.622 Voiceover: In taking categories and subverting categories. 0:09:30.622,0:09:32.714 Voiceover: In all kinds of play, visual play, 0:09:32.714,0:09:35.938 and also word play, which is embedded in a lot of his work, 0:09:35.938,0:09:38.520 and a more literal kind of play. 0:09:38.520,0:09:40.934 Later in his life, he would reject art, 0:09:40.934,0:09:43.794 in fact, as an occupation, and said 0:09:43.794,0:09:46.440 that he wanted to spend the rest of his life simply playing chess. 0:09:46.440,0:09:51.687 He would be lying, though, when he said he wouldn't make art any longer. 0:09:51.687,0:09:55.072 He made art, actually, until the end of his life, in secret. 0:09:55.072,0:09:57.294 Voiceover: When you say, "making art," 0:09:57.294,0:10:00.044 you don't actually mean making art. 0:10:00.044,0:10:01.928 Voiceover: Well, not painting, that's true. 0:10:01.928,0:10:05.928 (lively music)