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The Non-Dada
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© Succession Marcel Duchamp/ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2009

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The Non-Dada 1922
In the 1910s Duchamp began appropriating ready-made objects (including a bicycle wheel, a shovel and a urinal), which he then signed, re-titled and presented as artworks in their own right. The object Duchamp has appropriated here is a pamphlet published by an American vocational school. Duchamp chanced upon it when he was living in New York in 1922 and sent it to his friend Man Ray, who had moved to Paris the previous year. The work is signed ‘Rrose’, the name Duchamp invented for his female alter-ego.

Glossary Open

Commission

When an individual or organisation employs an artist to execute a particular project, the process and the resulting work are termed a ‘commission’.

Dada

A radical artistic and literary movement that was a reaction against the cultural climate that supported the First World War. The Dadaists took an anti-establishment attitude, questioning art's status and favouring performance and collage over traditional art techniques. Many Dadaists went on to become involved with Surrealism.

Readymade

A term coined by Marcel Duchamp to describe an existing object that is taken from its original context and regarded as a work of art.

Commission, Dada, Readymade

Details

  • Acc. No. GMA 3966
  • Medium Printed brochure with ink inscription
  • Size 14.00 x 11.00 cm
  • Credit Bequeathed by Gabrielle Keiller 1995

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