Hello everyone, it’s Ashlee! For my writing assignment I visited
the ‘Duchamp to Pop ‘exhibition that is currently on display at the Norton Simon Museum
in Pasadena. The exhibit explores French, naturalized American painter Marcel Duchamp’s influence
on Pop artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Jim Dine. About 40
works from the museum's permanent collection are on view as well as loans from
the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the collection of Jack and Joan
Quinn. Like referential art itself, the exhibition nods to previous Duchamp
exhibitions at the museum, back when it was called the Pasadena Art Museum in
the 1960s.
Marcel Duchamp
is an artist whose work is associated with Cubism, conceptual art and Dada. He
was integral in the development in the plastic arts and paved a new way of
thinking about art that expanded beyond the artist’s own intention and context.
His goal was to create as "retinal" art, intended only to please the
eye and transitioning everyday items into valid pieces of art that merited
attention and respect.
The exhibition also has works of artists he inspired like
American artist Andy Warhol who lead the pop art movement in the 1960s. They
had several of his ‘Campbell Soup Cans’ on display as well as second addition
of his ‘Brillo Boxes’. Both are screen-prints, but the first is used in a flat,
two dimensional manner that we are most used to using in class, whereas the
latter uses the technique on wood to create an almost sculptural piece.
I really liked the wide variety of techniques displayed and
how different artist used screen-printing in unexpected ways. What unified the
pieces thematically was to play with the social expectations of the time of
what was considered “high” art and their willingness to have a tongue in cheek
attitude regarding art.
