Marcel Duchamp's silence is overrated
Marcel Duchamp's silence is overrated was an action by the artist Joseph Beuys , which was broadcast live on December 11, 1964 as part of the series Die Drehscheibe in the North Rhine-Westphalia state studio of the Second German Television in Düsseldorf . Beuys' action was part of a Fluxus demonstration under the title Fluxus Group , which included a total of three actions. The other two participants were Bazon Brock with Agit Pop and Wolf Vostell with Dé-coll / age Happening . The duration of the simultaneous actions was about 30 minutes. The transmission was not recorded. Manfred Tischer documented the actions photographically.
Course of action
Before the start of the action, a shed was set up in the studio. Joseph Beuys entered the field of action and pulled a felt blanket with him. He sat down, took individual packages from a margarine carton and stacked them. Lying and crawling, he formed a fat corner in the inner corner of the wooden shed , with this process being the focus of the action. He also smeared grease on the felt blanket he had brought with him and rang a bell. Then he painted the words “THE SILENCE OF MARCEL DUCHAMP IS OVERVALUED” in capital letters with his brown cross paint on a square plate. Beuys also covered the plate with whole bars of chocolate. Beuys also lengthened a walking stick with fat at both ends.
context
The action could have been triggered by a debate on the question of “whether one should join the Duchamp tradition under the rubrum Neo-Dada”. This debate was fought by artists close to or belonging to the Fluxus movement in the mid-1960s. Uwe Schneede mentions the extract from the book About Marcel Duchamp by Robert Lebel , published in Paris in 1959 and in Cologne in 1962, as a specific point of reference for the campaign . It said that the artist could be politically and socially active or, in the sense of Marcel Duchamp , fall into silence. This passage could have been a direct suggestion for the title and could be interpreted as a criticism of Duchamp's concept of art, of his distancing himself from the art world and of his devotion to chess and writing.
literature
- Uwe M. Schneede : Joseph Beuys - the actions. Annotated catalog raisonné with photographic documentation . Stuttgart 1994.
- Peter Weibel : Beuys Brock Vostell Action. Demonstration. Participation. 1949-1983 . Ostfildern, Karlsruhe 2016.
Web links
- Marcel Duchamp's silence is overrated on Stefan Banz's website, PDF