After the provocations of French conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp, seemingly anything was possible. But that’s not the meaning of “after” in “Art After Duchamp,” a show of works by members of the Washington Sculptors Group at George Washington University’s Gallery 102. Most of the pieces chosen by Lisa Lipinski, who taught a graduate course on the artist at the school this spring, are modeled specifically on aspects of Duchamp’s work or life.
The 15 contributors barely pursue the broader implications of Duchamp’s rejection of art made for the eye rather than the mind. Instead, they riff on such things as the artist’s love of chess, silhouetted profile, selection of manufactured objects as “ready-made” sculptures and his once-scandalous 1912 Futurist-influenced painting, “Nude Descending a Staircase.” Thus Roger Cutler’s “Duchamp Descending a Stair” places a bicycle wheel (echoing one of the artist’s ready-mades) on a set of black steps, and Eugene Provenzo places talismans of Duchamp’s career in an old trombone case that recalls the valise in which the Frenchman placed a miniaturized retrospective of his own artistic output.
Several of the show’s entries suggest, perhaps unintentionally, that Duchamp’s work is antiquated. While electronics-savvy artist Chris Combs presents a digital “Campfire” that glows red when touched, other participants offer sculptures assembled from scrap metal, often rusted. At the center of Donna Cameron’s installation is a found-image video collage, but the piece also includes an old 16mm film projector the artist found on the street. The machine-made 20th-century objects that Duchamp reimagined as sculpture now appear quaint or obsolete. But that doesn’t mean his ideas are outmoded.
Art After Duchamp Through May 16 at Gallery 102, Smith Hall, George Washington University, 801 22nd St. NW. corcoran.gwu.edu/gallery-102. 202-994-1700.
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Image: “Cuboids Descending a Staircase” by Howard Goldfarb in the 15-artist show “Art After Duchamp.” (William Atkins/GW Today)
