Duchamp's Fountain
Duchamp's Nude Descending from the Staircase
Duchamp's The King and the Queen Surrounded by Swift Nudes
Duchamp's Air of Paris
The Duchamp Effect is a collection of essays, and interviews with five different artists, throughout the course of the 1990's. Elizabeth Armstrong interviews artists Bruce Conner and Ed Ruscha in the book. The other three artists interviewed, Sherrie Levine, Louise Lawler, and Fred Wilson, are interviewed by Martha Buskirk. Each one of these artists have created their own form of conceptual art that is in some way related to the works of an earlier artist named Marcel Duchamp. Duchamp was born in France on July 28th, 1887. His influence on the art world was one that many people did not understand at first, his pieces appeared very absurd, and unusual. Although some were fascinated by Duchamp's effect on art, it did not receive much accreditation until later on. His pieces were associated with Dadaism and Surrealism, two very unique art forms. Dadaism was a movement that emerged during 1916 and lasted until 1922. It involved different forms of visual arts and literature, such as poetry and art theory, and also forms of graphic design. Dadaism attempted to reject war by dismissing the current standards of modern art. Duchamp's effect on artists is also thanks to surrealist ideas as well. Emerging in the 1920s, the surrealist movement included arts that included different elements of surprise. It is viewed by many as a philosophical movement. Each one of the artists mentioned above create pieces that in some way or another relate to those works of Marcel Duchamp, hence the name for the book, The Duchamp Effect.
Ed Ruscha is the first artist interviewed in the collection of interviews. Ruscha is asked whether or not he believes Duchamp has had an effect on the works of artists today. Ruscha responds by describing Duchamp as the reason for the revolt among modern art. Duchamp changed the traditional view, according to Ruscha; he discovered common objects and displayed how they could be forms of art. In one of Ruscha's pieces in 1965, Apartments, Ruscha introduces that something as simple as an apartment building with some cars in front of it is a form of conceptual art, much like Duchamp's Fountain piece, which simply pictures a urinal. Ruscha's Apartments, shows people what an apartment complex looked like in Los Angeles in the 1960s. The other artist interviewed by Elizabeth Armstrong was Bruce Conner. Conner describes Duchamp's effect as the very idea of questioning; meaning that when you look at Duchamp's work, it makes you question what it is that he is trying to convey to people. The questions that his work arise are good for people, it makes them think hard about that piece and determine what it is Duchamp is trying to show to you. Conner's The Bride presented in The Duchamp Effect truly makes a person wonder what the significance of such a piece could possibly be. The questions that arise introduce the aesthetic of the piece. It is so closely related to many pieces to many pieces of Marcel Duchamp's pieces, such as Nude Descending from the Staircase, and The Kind and the Queen Surrounded by Swift Nudes.
Three other artists were interviewed by a different person in The Duchamp Effect by Martha Buskirk. The first was Sherrie Levine. Levine adopted the aesthetic Duchampian effect in her works as well. One piece focused on in particular in the book is her work, Black Shoes. It establishes ideas of Duchamp. Levine took her last pair of black shoes left from the seventy-five shows she sold at a shoe sale she held. When she decides to take the original readymade shoe and remake it into a fabricated readymade shoe, she is taking an object and exemplifying it's importance to her as a person. Many artists' works consist if the things or objects they value in their own lives, or things they believe others value. Artists portray what they believe to be important objects, and can show people their significance and relationship to the body. Duchamp mastered the idea of portraying different ordinary objects, and turning them into what he believed to be art. Louise Lawler took a different approach to the use of Duchamp's art; she actually used Duchamp's art. Lawler took a picture of Duchamp's piece, Air of Paris. Duchamp purchased an empty ampoule from a close friend, and takes it and turns it into a work of art. The empty ampoule is filled with nothing but air, and Duchamp shows that when it is carefully placed in say a musuem for people to look at, and it has nothing in it, leaving only air. Its not as fascinating as people expect it to be. Lawler takes this piece and took different pictures of it. Using black-and-white photo of the ampoule makes the shadows very prominent in expressing the piece. Playing with shadows in itself is use of Duchampian characteristics, in it's unusual appearance. The black-and-white further enhances the Duchamp effect. The last artist interviewed in The Duchamp Effect is Fred Wilson. Wilson was very different from other artists. He focused on the history of art. When he states that he focused on the history of art through introducing the different pieces in different museums. Wilson's pieces Installation at Seattle Art Museum and Mining the Museum are two pictures that focus on different exhibits in different museums. Wilson is attempting to introduce different aspects of art history and make people think about what event is being presented through is work, much like Duchamp.
Marcel Duchamp was a very inspiring individual to the art world that we know today. Many people do not relaize that the large variety of different forms of art was in large part made possible by him. He introduced things that weren't necessarily created, but contained artistic merit. Ed Ruscha saif this,"...he was a nonpainterly person in a painterly world, who was able to make his views be known without being an intellectual, being in fact a very simple man." Duchamp took himself about of the art world he presently lived in, and created his own art world through what he believed to be art.
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