NYAB Event - "Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase: An Homage” Exhibition

"Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase: An Homage” Exhibition

Francis M. Naumann Fine Art

This event has ended.

To celebrate the original Armory Show which was held at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City in February-March of 1913, “Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase: An Homage” will open at the gallery exactly 100 years to the day when the Armory Show opened in New York. For one week, from March 7 through March 10, 1913, selected works from the exhibition will be temporarily dismantled at the gallery and reinstalled in a booth at the Armory Show at the Piers.

Marcel Duchamp’s "Nude Descending a Staircase" was the unexpected sensation of the Armory Show in 1913, more than for any other reason, because visitors were unable to find the descending nude promised by the painting’s descriptive title. Moreover, for a somewhat prudish American public, the title was considered provocative: a nude doing anything more than reclining was more than they were willing to envision. As a result, the painting was the focus of critical attacks and ridicule. Since they were unable to locate the nude, frustrated critics compared the repeated, abstract forms of the painting to sights with which they were more familiar: “rush hour at the subway,” “an elevated railroad stairway in ruins after an earthquake,” and, most memorably, “an explosion in a shingle factory.”

Included in the homage exhibition will be a number of important historical items relating directly to Duchamp’s "Nude," such as several examples of the 'pochoir' (stencil-colored reproduction) he made of the painting in 1937. Also on view will be the original hand-colored copy that he made to serve as a guide for the 'pochoir' colorist, which was mounted into the lid of a valise dedicated to Sidney Janis. The Janis valise will form the centerpiece for the show, and works by contemporary artists will hang on the walls of the gallery surrounding it.

For this exhibition, a number of artists have agreed to create new works relating to Duchamp’s "Nude Descending. " They include Mike Bidlo's works in pencil, ice Brown, an amusing variation called "Dude Descending a Staircase" by Billy Copley, a maquette by Wim Delvoye titled, "Twisted Double Dump Truck Staircase," "Steps of Gold" by Marcel Dzama, photograph and video works by TR Ericsson, (photograph and video), an erotically charged nude female figure descending a staircase executed in a“thread-painting” technique by Robert Forman, a pen-and-ink drawing by Elizabeth Kley, a Joseph Kosuth white neon installation, Sophie Matisse's rendition of the painting without the nude (from her “removal” series), "Film No. 4 (Bottoms)" by Yoko Ono, Richard Prince's "Green Dalis Descending a Staircase," and much more.

Other artists have already made works that draw inspiration from Duchamp’s masterpiece, such as Gjon Mili (best known for his multiple, overlapping images of nude female model descending a staircase, 1942), Mel Ramos (a photorealist depiction of a nude woman descending stairs from 1987), Hans Richter (a photomontage of a descending nude prepared for his film made in 1946), Larry Rivers (one of five variations made of the painting for its 75th anniversary in 1988), Steve Gianakos (Fat Girl Descending Her Stair Case, 1988), Douglas Vogel (An Explosion in a Shingle Factory and Sunrise in a Lumber Yard, two constructions made entirely with house shingles based on separate cartoons of the painting that appeared in the newspapers when it was shown at the Armory Show in 1913) and Tetsuya Yamada (the model for a double-helix staircase planned for a height of 100 feet called The Endless Staircase).

Media

• Painting
• Photography
• Installation
• Video installation

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