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Marcel Duchamp: The Box in a Valise
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 22, 2021
My previous Duchamp volume triggered an epiphany that I am an artist if I say I am. This book reflects his contradictory project to celebrate and commoditize his own work at the same time. Here Duchamp miniaturized his less than one hundred works of art into a briefcase. In one sense how scandalizing for an artist to see his own work as reducible and reproducible. On the other hand the care, passion and thoughtfulness that went into the craft of creating the box, along with manufacturing objects as well as hand drawing aspects of the color slides meant that these works themselves were unique reproductions and works of art in and of themselves.
Originally, he created mostly by himself twenty valises that he sold to individuals and institutions. Ultimately, he created a less unique set of series that by his death more than thirty years after he began this project totaled 300 such boxes.
Had he simply created a catalog of his works with reproductions, this would be celebration of his own work. Why these valises and boxes aren't simply a catalog raises several wonderful artistic questions. What does it mean that a work of art is handcrafted as a reproduction of another work? How are reproductions both commodities and unique if they are all basically the same set of reproductions? What is the role of the patron in engaging with ostensibly an artists' entire work? What if the patron wants to frame some or all of the pieces? Or give or sell individualize pieces of the artists' work? What is the relationship between the 'original' and the crafted miniaturization of that work? Could this devalue the original or change its value as a work of art?
Duchamp created art to elevate and give credence to ideas such as production, reproduction, mechanical processes, machines by making art that intrinsically involved those developments. There is nothing more democratic in taking the pedestrian facts of life and using art to transcend them. Duchamp made me think to elevate my own life into art.
Originally, he created mostly by himself twenty valises that he sold to individuals and institutions. Ultimately, he created a less unique set of series that by his death more than thirty years after he began this project totaled 300 such boxes.
Had he simply created a catalog of his works with reproductions, this would be celebration of his own work. Why these valises and boxes aren't simply a catalog raises several wonderful artistic questions. What does it mean that a work of art is handcrafted as a reproduction of another work? How are reproductions both commodities and unique if they are all basically the same set of reproductions? What is the role of the patron in engaging with ostensibly an artists' entire work? What if the patron wants to frame some or all of the pieces? Or give or sell individualize pieces of the artists' work? What is the relationship between the 'original' and the crafted miniaturization of that work? Could this devalue the original or change its value as a work of art?
Duchamp created art to elevate and give credence to ideas such as production, reproduction, mechanical processes, machines by making art that intrinsically involved those developments. There is nothing more democratic in taking the pedestrian facts of life and using art to transcend them. Duchamp made me think to elevate my own life into art.
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July 18, 2022Hello, I can't read the book, can you help me with this?
July 12, 2020
Rather disappointed with the production values (considering the price).
I love Duchamp, but I have a feeling that this item is rather redundant.
I love Duchamp, but I have a feeling that this item is rather redundant.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews