The Bride and The Bachelors: Duchamp with Cage, Cunningham, Johns and Rauschenberg

We had to visit an exhibition as part of our Art and Design Theory module. On the 27th February I visited ‘The Bride and The Bachelors: Duchamp with Cage, Cunningham, Johns and Rauschenberg’ at the Barbican Art Gallery. 

Duchamp was a french artist most associated with the Dada and Surrealist movements, and considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century. This exhibition focused on Duchamps legacy he held within contemporary art and the collaborations and influence he had on composer, John Cage, choreographer, Merce Cunningham, and visual artists Robert Rauschengerg and Jasper Johns. 

I found some of Duchamps work quite humorous, such as Bicycle Wheel and Fountain. I tried to relate with Duchamp and see it as art, but it’s so far from the conventional that I struggled to do this. For him to be such an influential figure is bizarre to me because after looking at his work, couldn’t anyone do what he did? Fountain after all is just a urinal, and Bicycle wheel is just an up-side-down wheel on a stall. But I think it’s this scandalous approach he had towards art that made him so popular. 

Although I do find Duchamps ‘readymades’ some what of a practical joke, they did what they was supposed to do, they go against what people knew as art and create a light hearted and humorous approach instead, and thats what I understand the Dada movement to be about. 

The work that most interested me was the work by Jasper Johns. He experimented with numbers and colour, and I found his work the most enjoyable to look at. 

Overall I thought the exhibition was thought provoking but it didn’t radically change my views on how I saw Duchamp and his work before. It was useful and informative on what the Dada and Surrealist movements stood for and has contributed to my Art and Design Theory module.