Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), the painter and mixed media artist, was associated with Cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism, though he avoided any alliances. Duchamp’s work is characterized by its humor, the variety and unconventionality of its media, and its incessant probing of the boundaries of art. His legacy includes the insight that art can be about ideas instead of worldly things, a revolutionary notion that would resonate with later generations of artists.
"Rrose Sélavy was one of the pseudonyms of artist Marcel Duchamp. The name, a pun, sounds like the French phrase "Eros, c'est la vie", which translates to English as "eros, that's life". It has also been read as "arroser la vie" ("to make a toast to life")."
www.wikipedia.org
“Why not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy? is a 1921 "readymade" sculpture by Marcel Duchamp.
Duchamp made the piece as a birdcage containing a thermometer, a piece of cuttlebone and 152 marble cubes. He crafted the cubes to look like sugar cubes. Only when lifting the cage does it become clear that it is much heavier than it would be if the cubes were made of sugar.
About the sculpture, Duchamp said:
It is a Readymade in which the sugar is changed to marble. It is sort of a mythological effect.
Andre Breton wrote about Why not Sneeze, Rose Sélavy?:
"I have in mind the occasion when Marcel Duchamp got hold of some friends to show them a cage which seemed to have no birds in it, but to be half-full of lumps of sugar. He asked them to lift the cage and they were surprised at its heaviness. What they had taken for lumps of sugar were really small lumps of marble which at great expense Duchamp had had sawn up specially for the purpose. The trick in my opinion is no worse than any other, and I would even say that it is worth nearly all the tricks of art put together."
The Philadelphia Museum of Art displays the original as part of the Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection. Several replicas exist, made by Duchamp, but only in the original are the cubes stamped "Made in France".”
www.wikipedia.org
Marcel Duchamp speaks about his work
I am researching Marcel Duchamp for his use of an alter ego and also his readymade objects. Duchamp created this Selavy character in order to express another aspect of his mind, a different side, a way of thinking. The two are separate yet neither can be thought of without thinking of the other. I am also intrigued by his readymade objects in relation to the objects that I photographed. I had a hard time with those photographs in the beginnning, as I just rephotographed what was already there, but Duchamp's work makes those objects able to stand alone as art.
Why Not Sneeze Rose Sélavy?
1921/64.
Readymade: 152 marble cubes in the form of sugar cubes with thermometer and cuttlefishbone in a birdcage.
12.4 x 22.2 x 16.2 cm
Rrose Selavy
1921
Photograph by Man Ray
Art direction by Marcel Duchamp
Silver print; 5 7/8" x 3 7/8"
Fountain
1917 (original lost)
Readymade: porcelain urinal
Height 60 cm
Bicycle Wheel
1913
Readymade: bicycle wheel; diameter 64.8 cm, mounted on a stool, 60.2 cm high
Original lost
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