Synopsis

Echoes of the Readymade: Critique of Pure Modernism.
Therry De Duave

Therry De Duave discusses Duchamp’s Readymades concerning three major subjects. The beginning of art in general, the conditions necessary for the Readymades make the transition between “here is an object” and “this object is art”, and the instigation of the museum-without-walls.

De Duave argues that by turning the “essential conventions” of Modernist art into his subject matter, Duchamp was able to deconstruct the belief that being an artist required technical skill in a specific field, such as painting, sculpture, music or poetry. He also “achieved the reduction of art in general to its necessary and sufficient conditions [...] Duchamp went straight to the most primary convention, the most elementary of all modernist artistic practice, namely that works of art are shown to be judged as such.” (96)

The “necessary and sufficient conditions” are what validate an object, such as a urinal, as an artwork. These conditions are an object, an author, a public, and an institution. The object is a given, it pre-exists solely as an object. The author’s role is to choose- not create- this object and to inscribe, or register it as an artwork. This inscription involves the author’s hand, and replaces the art object fabrication. However this object cannot successfully transition from object to art until its status is named by the public, or critics. The role of the institution is to sanction the objects art status. However, as proved in the Richard Mutt Case, the “institute can refuse to validate object as art, but nonetheless effectuates the concomitance of the first 3 conditions, and registers it.” (117)
With the loss of the Readymades, and incidental replicas, collector’s items and images, a certain ‘cult value’ now surrounds them. Through this De Dauve believes the institution has become symbolic, and that an objects status, determined through the ‘museum-without-walls’, such as magazines, rather than quality can earn it the label of art.