Long before Andy Warhol (1928-87) made art out of a common soup can, another artist turned the art world upside down by questioning what art is or what it can be. That artist was Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), a Frenchman who changed the rules in 1917 by entering a urinal for an exhibit in a New York gallery.
Duchamp conceived of the artwork, titled "Fountain," for a show promoting avant-garde art. Paying the $6 entry fee for an exhibit of the American Society of Independent Artists, he signed it with the pseudonym "R. Mutt" as a prank to his fellow avant-garde artists. It was never actually included in the exhibit. Nevertheless the piece has become iconic, and is widely considered one of the most influential modern artworks of all time.
"Art, ultimately, can be anything, and Duchamp is the person who first said that," says Matt Wrbican, archivist at The Andy Warhol Museum. "Twisted Pair: Marcel Duchamp/Andy Warhol," an exhibit at the Warhol museum organized by Wrbican, examines a unique artistic kinship between Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol, two of the most important and influential artists of the 20th century.
While many have compared the art of both artists before, this exhibit, which pairs dozens of their works and takes advantage of Warhol's personal papers, is the first to thoroughly explore Warhol's great interest in and indebtedness to Duchamp.
"I've been thinking about this show almost since the day I was hired 18 years ago," Wrbican says. "I could just see so many parallels, it was just so obvious to me."
Wrbican began working on the exhibit in earnest about three years ago, and as he says of those parallels, "the more I looked, the more I found."
For example, in one of the two seventh floor galleries that house the exhibit, a copy of Duchamp's "Fountain" sits on a brick base next to a painting of a toilet by Warhol from 1961. Not far from those, another Warhol painting from 1961 of a typewriter hangs next to a dust cover for a typewriter -- one of Duchamp's "ready-made" artworks as he called them -- titled "Traveler's Folding Item" from 1916. And a painting Warhol made of the Mona Lisa in 1979 is exhibited alongside an altered postcard by Duchamp featuring the famous face with a moustache the artist added in pencil.
These are just a few strikingly similar works by the two artists, and there are many more. As visitors will see, the paired works in this exhibit echo each other across decades in a variety of media, including film, painting, sculpture, installation, published works and ephemeral and written statements.
Wrbican contends that Duchamp may have held more influence on Warhol than any other artist. Although the artistic kinship between them was noted as early as 1962, recent Duchamp scholarship and access to Warhol's personal papers -- many held in The Andy Warhol Museum archives -- have underscored Warhol's enduring interest in and indebtedness to Duchamp.
As an art collector, Warhol owned "Fountain," "Priere de Toucher," "Female Fig Leaf," and about 30 other Duchamp works and related objects -- a significant number, considering Duchamp's limited output. Exhibited copies of works that were owned by Warhol are identified in the labels, making for a fun treasure hunt of sorts.
Duchamp, who lived into his 80s, was well aware of Warhol's work. He once said of Warhol's Campbell's soup can paintings, "If you take a Campbell's soup can and repeat it 50 times, you are not interested in the retinal image. What interests you is the concept that wants to put 50 Campbell's soup cans on a canvas."
Among their shared interests and themes are optical-effect experiments, language and puns, pseudonyms, sexuality, identity and role-playing, money, fame and death. All of which are touched upon in some form or other in this exhibit.
To generate new art, both Duchamp and Warhol mined their personal archives and recycled their previous works. Two photographs in the exhibit are particularly telling -- Irving Penn's "Marcel Duchamp, New York, 1948" and Otto Fenn's "Andy Warhol standing in a corner, 1954."
The physical orientation of each artist in this pair of photographs (both in a corner, with Duchamp facing outward and Warhol facing inward) gives an indication of both their similarities and their differences.
Born in 1887, Duchamp was a mature man of 60 when Irving Penn shot his portrait in 1948, and his posture, though leaning in a tight corner, shows an air of confident relaxation.
He had lived on three continents, through two world wars, invented a totally new form of art, was a famous personality before the age of 30 (though he felt that fame was not necessarily a good thing), and -- as a central figure in two of the great aesthetic movements of the 20th century, Dadaism and Surrealism -- had sent shockwaves through the public several times. Yet, some of his best years were still ahead of him. He also was in the midst of one of the greatest romantic affairs of his life, and had recently -- in almost total secrecy -- begun working on his last great shock for the art world: "Etant Donnes" (in English, "Given"), which would occupy him for the next 20 years.
By contrast, when Warhol playfully posed for his friend Otto Fenn, facing the corner like a public-school "dunce" of times past, he was just beginning to enjoy some of the tremendous professional success that would come his way.
A 25-year-old gay man, he had lived in New York for only five years and was making a name as a commercial illustrator who could and would draw anything that his client wished. Seven years after this gently nihilistic portrait was made, he would take a radically different tack to his work, and achieve the fame that he craved.
Additional Information:'Twisted Pair: Marcel Duchamp/Andy Warhol'
When: Through Sept. 12. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays; until 8 p.m. Fridays
Admission: $15; $9 for senior citizens; $8 for children and students
Where: The Andy Warhol Museum, 117 Sandusky St., North Shore
Details: 412-237-6300 or website
