In his lifetime, French artist MARCEL DUCHAMP liked to constantly challenge the notion of real art. It’s fitting that a new exhibition is housed in the home of his lifelong friend, the American heiress and prolific art collector, Peggy Guggenheim. By Rosalind Ormiston
FROM 14 OCTOBER 2023 until 18 March 2024, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice – located in the stunning Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal – is presenting Marcel Duchamp and the Lure of the Copy. The exhibition is devoted exclusively to the French artist Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) who was a friend of Peggy Guggenheim for many years. Duchamp is legendary for challenging the cult of an original work of art by producing duplications and copies in different media and varying sizes and limited editions of art. He redefined what constitutes an original artwork and the role of the artist. This exhibition brings together 60 artworks that date from 1911 to 1968 and includes radical pieces that challenged the art world in the 20th century.
Born in Normandy and living in Paris, Duchamp, alongside his brother Raymond Duchamp-Villon (1876-1918), a sculptor, and half-brother Jacques Villon (1875-1963) a painter, were prominent within an avant-garde group of sculptors and painters, in which Picasso and Braque were visible. Duchamp’s notoriety was initially created through a painting Nude Descending a Staircase, 1912; his ‘ready-made’ works of art, became famous for everyday shop-bought objects being turned into works of art or anti-art. They included a wine rack, titled Bottle Rack, 1914 (replicated 1959); a snow shovel, In Advance of a Broken Arm, 1915 (original lost, several replicas) and an upturned urinal, Fountain, 1917 signed ‘R. Mutt’ (original lost, replica created in 1964).
The American heiress Marguerite ‘Peggy’ Guggenheim (1898-1979), born in New York, travelled to Europe in 1921. Guggenheim and Duchamp were to become lifelong friends. They had met in 1937, and on 24 January 1938, in Cork Street, London, Guggenheim opened her first art gallery, Guggenheim Jeune with a collection of Jean Cocteau artworks, chosen and installed by Duchamp. He became her art advisor, helping her to create a unique collection of avant-garde art by painters and sculptors who are renowned today. In her memoirs, Guggenheim stated that initially she had not been able to distinguish one artwork from another but Duchamp had taught her the difference between Surrealism, Cubism an
