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拍品專文
In November 1915, Marcel Duchamp noticed a pile of snow shovels outside a hardware store near his New York studio, stacked together in preparation for an approaching winter storm. Though a ubiquitous sight for residents of the city, the artist had never encountered one before, as they were unnecessary in the more moderate French climate. Intrigued, he bought one of the large shovels and, upon returning to his studio, he titled, signed and dated it on the handle, “In Advance of the Broken Arm / (from) Marcel Duchamp 1915.” He then hung it from the ceiling, transforming the object into an intriguing, unexpected sculpture. Duchamp’s friend and fellow artist, Jean Crotti, who was then sharing his studio, described it as “the most beautiful object I have ever seen” (quoted in A. Schwarz, op. cit., 2000, vol. II, p. 636). With this revolutionary act, Duchamp reconceived the very notion of artistic creation, granting this mass-produced, machine-made object, which had no previous aesthetic value, the status of an original work of art. Among the earliest of the artist’s iconic and profoundly influential Readymades, In Advance of the Broken Arm was the first of its kind to be made while Duchamp was living in America during the First World War, and marked an important turning point in his creative thinking.
The story of Duchamp’s Readymades had begun in Paris two years prior, in 1913, when the artist was struck by the novel idea to fasten a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool, in order to “watch it turn” (Duchamp, “Apropos of ‘Readymades’” 1961; quoted in M. Affron, op. cit., 2018, p. 171). As the artist explained, while the eponymous Bicycle Wheel was not intended to become a sculptural work in its own right, it sparked a shift in his thinking: “The Bicycle Wheel is my first Readymade, so much so that at first it wasn’t even called a Readymade. It still had little to do with the idea of the Readymade. Rather, it had more to do with the idea of chance. In a way, it was simply letting things go by themselves and having a sort of created atmosphere in a studio, an apartment where you live” (quoted in A. Schwarz, op. cit., 2000, vol. II, p. 588).
Not long after, Duchamp expanded on the idea by acquiring a “pre-made” sculpture, purchasing a common bottle rack at the Parisian department store, Bazar de l’Hotel de Ville. A familiar sight within French households, Bottle Rack was chosen for its inherent lack of interest, or what Duchamp called its “pure visual indifference” (quoted in ibid., p. 615). The rack, traditionally used for drying glass bottles, was placed in the artist’s studio as an independent sculptural piece, without any intervention, adjustment or assembly by Duchamp, a subversive act that would open his practice up to profound philosophical questions. With Bicycle Wheel and Bottle Rack, the artist was suggesting a new means of artistic expression—no longer was the hand of the artist the defining principle for an artwork’s validity, worth or meaning. Instead, Duchamp posited, it was the concept behind its creation that made something a work of art. After moving to New York, Duchamp’s ideas evolved rapidly as he defined the central theories and “rules” that underpinned this form of artistic creation, which reached full fruition in In Advance of the Broken Arm.
Duchamp chose the English word “Readymade” to describe these works, repurposing the term typically used to describe manufactured, ready-to-wear clothing, rather than garments that were tailored or custom made for the buyer. Most importantly, he did not select a Readymade object for their function or appearance, or set out with a concept in mind, but rather relied on a serendipitous encounter, which he described as a rendez-vous with the object, to stimulate his imagination. Referring to the objects themselves, he said: “I don’t look at them, I think about them. I don’t look for them. They find me” (quoted in M. Affron, exh. cat., op. cit., 2018, p. 144). Another key strategy of the Readymades involved divorcing the object from its usual surroundings and purpose, in order to transform how it was perceived, hence why the bicycle wheel was placed upside down on a stool, or why the shovel was suspended from the ceiling, in a manner that made it appear to be floating.
The playful title of In Advance of the Broken Arm, meanwhile, refers to the utilitarian purpose of the shovels, typically used to clear snow from stoops or sidewalks, in order to make it easier for pedestrians to move through the city during the winter. As Duchamp noted, the title was an important addition to the Readymade, an injection of humor that prompted the viewer’s own imagination to engage with the work. “One important characteristic was the short sentence which I occasionally inscribed on the ‘Readymade’,” he later explained. “That sentence, instead of describing the object like a title, was meant to carry the mind of the spectator towards other regions more verbal…” (quoted in G. Parkinson, The Duchamp Book, London, 2008, p. 155). With In Advance of the Broken Arm, Duchamp appears to invoke the potential hazards associated with the snow shovel, the choice of words leading the viewer to imagine an icy sidewalk, covered in snow, a slip, an awkward landing, and an unexpected trip to the hospital. “I was hoping it was without sense,” Duchamp later admitted, discussing the inscription on the snow shovel, “but deep down, everything ends up by having some…” (F.M. Naumann, op. cit., 2012, p. 117).
The following spring, Duchamp included In Advance of the Broken Arm together with another recent Readymade, the typewriter cover called Traveler’s Folding Item, in the exhibition “Modern Art after Cezanne” at the Bourgeois Galleries in New York. The gallery had only agreed to exhibit the groundbreaking Readymades following the artist’s insistence, in return for allowing them to display his earlier paintings, which had become increasingly popular with collectors in the city following the famed Armory Show of 1913. According to the artist, the two Readymades were displayed by an umbrella stand at the entrance to the gallery, and were all but ignored by visiting audiences and critics, much to his delight. Indeed, it was not until Duchamp’s iconoclastic Fountain was submitted to the first exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in New York in 1917, that the concept of the Readymade entered the public consciousness—chosen specifically for its shock value, this urinal, signed with the pseudonym R. Mutt, proved to be an extraordinary succès de scandal, bringing the complex and controversial questions posed by Duchamp’s Readymades to the forefront of debates surrounding modern art.
The present example of In Advance of the Broken Arm was produced in 1964 under the supervision of Duchamp, working in close collaboration with Arturo Schwarz, in an edition of eight, plus two reserved for the artist and Schwarz, as well as an additional two for museum collections. As with so many of the early Readymades, the 1915 version had been lost or destroyed, and remains known only through contemporary photographs of the artist’s New York studio. For Duchamp, the later editions of his Readymades offered a way of rescuing these lost artworks, immortalizing the idea which had informed the originals and restoring an essential piece of his revolutionary oeuvre. As Duchamp noted around this time, the Readymades remained the most revolutionary and consequential artworks of his long and varied career: “I’m not at all sure that the concept of the Readymade isn’t the most important single idea to come out of my work,” he proclaimed (quoted in J. Mundy, exh. cat., op. cit., 2008, p. 130).
This was not the first time Duchamp had sought to replicate In Advance of the Broken Arm—a second version was requested in 1945 by Katherine S. Dreier for her infamous Société Anonyme exhibition and now resides in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, while in 1963, Duchamp produced a third version for a private collector, which is now held in the collections of the Moderna Museet, Stockholm. For the project with Schwarz, Duchamp chose a selection of his best known and most successful Readymades to recreate, and was determined that the 1964 editions were as closely aligned to the original objects as possible—numerous letters regarding the project reveal Duchamp’s precise instructions of the style, size and type of the various elements required, emphasizing that it was essential to find the best match possible. Of the eight 1964 versions of In Advance of the Broken Arm, the majority are today found in museum collections around the world, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
The present In Advance of the Broken Arm comes from the family of another pioneer of Conceptualism—the American artist Joseph Kosuth. From the earliest stages of his career, Duchamp has served as one of Kosuth’s most important influences, his subversion of the notion of an artwork leaving an indelible impression on Kosuth’s own practice. “The implications of Duchamp’s work are vastly more profound than any artist I can think of,” remarked Kosuth in 1970. “I can’t imagine how one could proceed with a radical re-thinking of the art of this century without Marcel Duchamp providing a source for the tools which could make that possible” (quoted in F.M. Naumann, op. cit., 2012, p. 456). In particular, he argued, Duchamp’s Readymades provided the jumping off point for the complete upending of artistic tradition during the twentieth century: “The event that made conceivable the realization that it was possible to ‘speak another language’ and still make sense in art was Marcel Duchamp’s first unassisted Readymade. With the unassisted Readymade, art changed its focus from the form of language to what was being said” (“Art after Philosophy” in Studio International, vol. 178, no. 915, October 1969; quoted in A. D’Harnoncourt and K. McShine, eds., exh. cat., op. cit., 1973, p. 175).
In his seminal One in Three Series (1966-1968), Kosuth built on the example of Duchamp’s Readymades, examining a variety of common, everyday objects—such as a chair, a broom, a lamp, a clock—in a deceptively unassuming installation, arranging a physical example of the object, a photographic reproduction of it, and a panel of text bearing the standard French-English dictionary definition of that object, alongside one another. With these works—which included One and Three Shovels, a piece that appears to directly invoke Duchamp’s In Advance of the Broken Arm—Kosuth unpacked ideas of representation and language, prompting the viewer to consider and question which of the three is the more valid expression of his chosen object. In this way, Kosuth paid homage to Duchamp’s revolutionary Readymades, celebrating their continued relevance and ability to provoke new generations of artists and audiences into reconsidering the act of artmaking for the modern age.
The story of Duchamp’s Readymades had begun in Paris two years prior, in 1913, when the artist was struck by the novel idea to fasten a bicycle wheel to a kitchen stool, in order to “watch it turn” (Duchamp, “Apropos of ‘Readymades’” 1961; quoted in M. Affron, op. cit., 2018, p. 171). As the artist explained, while the eponymous Bicycle Wheel was not intended to become a sculptural work in its own right, it sparked a shift in his thinking: “The Bicycle Wheel is my first Readymade, so much so that at first it wasn’t even called a Readymade. It still had little to do with the idea of the Readymade. Rather, it had more to do with the idea of chance. In a way, it was simply letting things go by themselves and having a sort of created atmosphere in a studio, an apartment where you live” (quoted in A. Schwarz, op. cit., 2000, vol. II, p. 588).
Not long after, Duchamp expanded on the idea by acquiring a “pre-made” sculpture, purchasing a common bottle rack at the Parisian department store, Bazar de l’Hotel de Ville. A familiar sight within French households, Bottle Rack was chosen for its inherent lack of interest, or what Duchamp called its “pure visual indifference” (quoted in ibid., p. 615). The rack, traditionally used for drying glass bottles, was placed in the artist’s studio as an independent sculptural piece, without any intervention, adjustment or assembly by Duchamp, a subversive act that would open his practice up to profound philosophical questions. With Bicycle Wheel and Bottle Rack, the artist was suggesting a new means of artistic expression—no longer was the hand of the artist the defining principle for an artwork’s validity, worth or meaning. Instead, Duchamp posited, it was the concept behind its creation that made something a work of art. After moving to New York, Duchamp’s ideas evolved rapidly as he defined the central theories and “rules” that underpinned this form of artistic creation, which reached full fruition in In Advance of the Broken Arm.
Duchamp chose the English word “Readymade” to describe these works, repurposing the term typically used to describe manufactured, ready-to-wear clothing, rather than garments that were tailored or custom made for the buyer. Most importantly, he did not select a Readymade object for their function or appearance, or set out with a concept in mind, but rather relied on a serendipitous encounter, which he described as a rendez-vous with the object, to stimulate his imagination. Referring to the objects themselves, he said: “I don’t look at them, I think about them. I don’t look for them. They find me” (quoted in M. Affron, exh. cat., op. cit., 2018, p. 144). Another key strategy of the Readymades involved divorcing the object from its usual surroundings and purpose, in order to transform how it was perceived, hence why the bicycle wheel was placed upside down on a stool, or why the shovel was suspended from the ceiling, in a manner that made it appear to be floating.
The playful title of In Advance of the Broken Arm, meanwhile, refers to the utilitarian purpose of the shovels, typically used to clear snow from stoops or sidewalks, in order to make it easier for pedestrians to move through the city during the winter. As Duchamp noted, the title was an important addition to the Readymade, an injection of humor that prompted the viewer’s own imagination to engage with the work. “One important characteristic was the short sentence which I occasionally inscribed on the ‘Readymade’,” he later explained. “That sentence, instead of describing the object like a title, was meant to carry the mind of the spectator towards other regions more verbal…” (quoted in G. Parkinson, The Duchamp Book, London, 2008, p. 155). With In Advance of the Broken Arm, Duchamp appears to invoke the potential hazards associated with the snow shovel, the choice of words leading the viewer to imagine an icy sidewalk, covered in snow, a slip, an awkward landing, and an unexpected trip to the hospital. “I was hoping it was without sense,” Duchamp later admitted, discussing the inscription on the snow shovel, “but deep down, everything ends up by having some…” (F.M. Naumann, op. cit., 2012, p. 117).
The following spring, Duchamp included In Advance of the Broken Arm together with another recent Readymade, the typewriter cover called Traveler’s Folding Item, in the exhibition “Modern Art after Cezanne” at the Bourgeois Galleries in New York. The gallery had only agreed to exhibit the groundbreaking Readymades following the artist’s insistence, in return for allowing them to display his earlier paintings, which had become increasingly popular with collectors in the city following the famed Armory Show of 1913. According to the artist, the two Readymades were displayed by an umbrella stand at the entrance to the gallery, and were all but ignored by visiting audiences and critics, much to his delight. Indeed, it was not until Duchamp’s iconoclastic Fountain was submitted to the first exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in New York in 1917, that the concept of the Readymade entered the public consciousness—chosen specifically for its shock value, this urinal, signed with the pseudonym R. Mutt, proved to be an extraordinary succès de scandal, bringing the complex and controversial questions posed by Duchamp’s Readymades to the forefront of debates surrounding modern art.
The present example of In Advance of the Broken Arm was produced in 1964 under the supervision of Duchamp, working in close collaboration with Arturo Schwarz, in an edition of eight, plus two reserved for the artist and Schwarz, as well as an additional two for museum collections. As with so many of the early Readymades, the 1915 version had been lost or destroyed, and remains known only through contemporary photographs of the artist’s New York studio. For Duchamp, the later editions of his Readymades offered a way of rescuing these lost artworks, immortalizing the idea which had informed the originals and restoring an essential piece of his revolutionary oeuvre. As Duchamp noted around this time, the Readymades remained the most revolutionary and consequential artworks of his long and varied career: “I’m not at all sure that the concept of the Readymade isn’t the most important single idea to come out of my work,” he proclaimed (quoted in J. Mundy, exh. cat., op. cit., 2008, p. 130).
This was not the first time Duchamp had sought to replicate In Advance of the Broken Arm—a second version was requested in 1945 by Katherine S. Dreier for her infamous Société Anonyme exhibition and now resides in the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, while in 1963, Duchamp produced a third version for a private collector, which is now held in the collections of the Moderna Museet, Stockholm. For the project with Schwarz, Duchamp chose a selection of his best known and most successful Readymades to recreate, and was determined that the 1964 editions were as closely aligned to the original objects as possible—numerous letters regarding the project reveal Duchamp’s precise instructions of the style, size and type of the various elements required, emphasizing that it was essential to find the best match possible. Of the eight 1964 versions of In Advance of the Broken Arm, the majority are today found in museum collections around the world, including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.
The present In Advance of the Broken Arm comes from the family of another pioneer of Conceptualism—the American artist Joseph Kosuth. From the earliest stages of his career, Duchamp has served as one of Kosuth’s most important influences, his subversion of the notion of an artwork leaving an indelible impression on Kosuth’s own practice. “The implications of Duchamp’s work are vastly more profound than any artist I can think of,” remarked Kosuth in 1970. “I can’t imagine how one could proceed with a radical re-thinking of the art of this century without Marcel Duchamp providing a source for the tools which could make that possible” (quoted in F.M. Naumann, op. cit., 2012, p. 456). In particular, he argued, Duchamp’s Readymades provided the jumping off point for the complete upending of artistic tradition during the twentieth century: “The event that made conceivable the realization that it was possible to ‘speak another language’ and still make sense in art was Marcel Duchamp’s first unassisted Readymade. With the unassisted Readymade, art changed its focus from the form of language to what was being said” (“Art after Philosophy” in Studio International, vol. 178, no. 915, October 1969; quoted in A. D’Harnoncourt and K. McShine, eds., exh. cat., op. cit., 1973, p. 175).
In his seminal One in Three Series (1966-1968), Kosuth built on the example of Duchamp’s Readymades, examining a variety of common, everyday objects—such as a chair, a broom, a lamp, a clock—in a deceptively unassuming installation, arranging a physical example of the object, a photographic reproduction of it, and a panel of text bearing the standard French-English dictionary definition of that object, alongside one another. With these works—which included One and Three Shovels, a piece that appears to directly invoke Duchamp’s In Advance of the Broken Arm—Kosuth unpacked ideas of representation and language, prompting the viewer to consider and question which of the three is the more valid expression of his chosen object. In this way, Kosuth paid homage to Duchamp’s revolutionary Readymades, celebrating their continued relevance and ability to provoke new generations of artists and audiences into reconsidering the act of artmaking for the modern age.