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拍品专文
"I thought of it as a present for Arensberg, who had everything money could buy. So I brought him an ampoule of Paris air." Marcel Duchamp
Delicate yet mysterious, Marcel Duchamp’s Air de Paris represents one of his most personal and poetic readymades. Late in 1919, before leaving Paris, Duchamp purchased a souvenir for his dear friend and patron, Walter C. Arensberg. He asked a local pharmacist to empty the “Serum Physiologique” from a glass ampoule, allowing it to refill with Paris air before resealing it. Reminiscing on his experience Duchamp stated, “I thought of it as a present for Arensberg, who had everything money could buy. So I brought him an ampoule of Paris air” (H. Richter, Dada: Art and Anti-Art, New York, 1965, p. 99). The store-bought glass vessel encasing air appeared to contain nothing at all forcing the viewer to question what exactly, if anything, the ampoule holds.
As pioneer of the Dada movement, Duchamp rejected the concept of a work of art seeking alternatives to the institution. The ultimate defiance on artistic tradition was the Readymade: “any common, fabricated object that, without undergoing any modification but solely by reason of its having been chosen by the author, is consecrated a work of art” (A. Schwartz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, New York, 2000, p. 44). Art evolved into a choice, a decision, rather than the desire for an aesthetically pleasing visual; the Readymade dissolved taste and embraced visual indifference. Duchamp’s choice of the tiny French glass ornament allowed the object to become a work of art capturing a moment in time, a cerebral art. In true Dada fashion, Arensberg, in 1949, accidentally broke the ampoule containing the air of Paris. Though able to be repaired, this begs the question—is this the Air de Paris any longer?
50cc d’air de Paris, inscribed on the present work, falsifies the volume that the ampoule encases. Alluding to Duchamp’s suspicion of the definite, the ampoule itself in fact holds 125 cubic centimeters, more than double Duchamp’s determination. This mistrust for a unit of measure was materialized in 3 Standard Stoppages from 1913-14. Dropping three one-meter-long threads, from the height of one meter onto stretched canvases, Duchamp left the outcome entirely to chance. To preserve the curves, the threads were adhered to the canvases and cut along the profile. Each thread remained a meter long, yet all formed differently mocking the notions of measurement—“a joke about the meter.” Air de Paris mocks the standards of measurement by blatantly misleading the viewer with not only physical size, but its contents. Can you truly measure nothing?
Duchamp inspired many artists through the Readymade and redefinition of the artistic ritual. One such artist who truly took to heart Duchamp’s mockery and rejection of “retinal” art was Piero Manzoni. In 1961, the artist produced ninety cans of Artist’s Shit, each number and signed. In a letter to his friend Ben Vautier, Manzoni wrote “…if collectors want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there’s the artist’s own shit, that is really his” (F. Battino and L. Palazzoli, Piero Manzoni: Catalogue Raisonné, Milan, 1991, p. 144). Manzoni disregarded taste and fulfilled the “desire” of collectors. Duchamp’s creation of the Readymade not only shaped the artists around him, but changed the course of artistic practice. Postwar and contemporary artists, such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jeff Koons and Martin Creed, still reference his defiance and boldness choosing the found object as their medium.
To further the desecration of artistic tradition, the Readymade can inherently be found and chosen indiscriminately. Though to allow the original notion to prosper, on the 50th anniversary of its conception, Duchamp collaborated with his close friend and gallery owner Arturo Schwarz to reproduce a series of Readymades, which had since been destroyed or lost—including The Fountain and Hat Rack. The present work of 1964 was created on this occasion to celebrate Duchamp’s ultimate rebellion, ensuring its affluence. Of the twelve reproductions allowed by Duchamp, one was reserved for the artist and another for Schwarz (the present work). While the original remains in the famed Marcel Duchamp collection of Walter C. Arensberg gifted to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, another from the edition of the eight lives in Paris at the Centre Pomipdou.
Delicate yet mysterious, Marcel Duchamp’s Air de Paris represents one of his most personal and poetic readymades. Late in 1919, before leaving Paris, Duchamp purchased a souvenir for his dear friend and patron, Walter C. Arensberg. He asked a local pharmacist to empty the “Serum Physiologique” from a glass ampoule, allowing it to refill with Paris air before resealing it. Reminiscing on his experience Duchamp stated, “I thought of it as a present for Arensberg, who had everything money could buy. So I brought him an ampoule of Paris air” (H. Richter, Dada: Art and Anti-Art, New York, 1965, p. 99). The store-bought glass vessel encasing air appeared to contain nothing at all forcing the viewer to question what exactly, if anything, the ampoule holds.
As pioneer of the Dada movement, Duchamp rejected the concept of a work of art seeking alternatives to the institution. The ultimate defiance on artistic tradition was the Readymade: “any common, fabricated object that, without undergoing any modification but solely by reason of its having been chosen by the author, is consecrated a work of art” (A. Schwartz, The Complete Works of Marcel Duchamp, New York, 2000, p. 44). Art evolved into a choice, a decision, rather than the desire for an aesthetically pleasing visual; the Readymade dissolved taste and embraced visual indifference. Duchamp’s choice of the tiny French glass ornament allowed the object to become a work of art capturing a moment in time, a cerebral art. In true Dada fashion, Arensberg, in 1949, accidentally broke the ampoule containing the air of Paris. Though able to be repaired, this begs the question—is this the Air de Paris any longer?
50cc d’air de Paris, inscribed on the present work, falsifies the volume that the ampoule encases. Alluding to Duchamp’s suspicion of the definite, the ampoule itself in fact holds 125 cubic centimeters, more than double Duchamp’s determination. This mistrust for a unit of measure was materialized in 3 Standard Stoppages from 1913-14. Dropping three one-meter-long threads, from the height of one meter onto stretched canvases, Duchamp left the outcome entirely to chance. To preserve the curves, the threads were adhered to the canvases and cut along the profile. Each thread remained a meter long, yet all formed differently mocking the notions of measurement—“a joke about the meter.” Air de Paris mocks the standards of measurement by blatantly misleading the viewer with not only physical size, but its contents. Can you truly measure nothing?
Duchamp inspired many artists through the Readymade and redefinition of the artistic ritual. One such artist who truly took to heart Duchamp’s mockery and rejection of “retinal” art was Piero Manzoni. In 1961, the artist produced ninety cans of Artist’s Shit, each number and signed. In a letter to his friend Ben Vautier, Manzoni wrote “…if collectors want something intimate, really personal to the artist, there’s the artist’s own shit, that is really his” (F. Battino and L. Palazzoli, Piero Manzoni: Catalogue Raisonné, Milan, 1991, p. 144). Manzoni disregarded taste and fulfilled the “desire” of collectors. Duchamp’s creation of the Readymade not only shaped the artists around him, but changed the course of artistic practice. Postwar and contemporary artists, such as Robert Rauschenberg, Jeff Koons and Martin Creed, still reference his defiance and boldness choosing the found object as their medium.
To further the desecration of artistic tradition, the Readymade can inherently be found and chosen indiscriminately. Though to allow the original notion to prosper, on the 50th anniversary of its conception, Duchamp collaborated with his close friend and gallery owner Arturo Schwarz to reproduce a series of Readymades, which had since been destroyed or lost—including The Fountain and Hat Rack. The present work of 1964 was created on this occasion to celebrate Duchamp’s ultimate rebellion, ensuring its affluence. Of the twelve reproductions allowed by Duchamp, one was reserved for the artist and another for Schwarz (the present work). While the original remains in the famed Marcel Duchamp collection of Walter C. Arensberg gifted to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, another from the edition of the eight lives in Paris at the Centre Pomipdou.