Endevours of Duchamp by Kacie Murray

I can remember visiting the Philadelphia Art Museum as a little girl. Like most things, it appeared so much bigger then. It truly was a castle where my dreams were inspired by rooms filled with knights in shining armor, and ballerinas casted in bronze. I remember most things, but I don't know why I don't remember the modern and contemporary section at all! Maybe my parents never brought me in there, or maybe at the time it seemed like paintings I could have done myself and simply dismissed it?  To me these works are like taking a deep breathe of fresh air. I will admit that I felt a bit left out when everyone seemed to be buzzing over the Cy Twombly room (but i appreciate the way it makes me feel so small in a world full of wars and evolving peril). There is so much, though, that I can fall madly in love with and stay and watch in amazement as if watching "The Wizard of Oz" for the first time. Such as favorites include Dorthea Tanning's Birthday and Henri Matisse's Breakfast, they are the pieces that make me want to be a better artist.

This particular trip I seemed to spend alot of time looking at Marcel Duchamp's work. Duchamp himself was quite unconventional and was known to challenge the artistic ideas of the time. He was mostly associated with the Dada movement. Dada itself was a movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland amidst World War I. The art itself was mostly statements that expressed anti-war sentiments and made art that challenged cultural norms and intellectual boundaries. They are responsible for the development of some of my favorite art techniques including collage, photomontages, assemblages, and readymades. One of the first readymades was made famous by Duchamp when he called a urinal art and named it Fountain. That is a perfect example of Duchamp's intellectual mind play, he is immediately challenging you, evoking instability, and questions to be asked. He was opening minds, not necessarily to understand the art itself but to the reaction they had to it.

It wasn't until this trip that I had even noticed The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even. Initially my attention was captures by the broken glass. I sat down at the bench right across from the piece and tried to absorb what I was looking at. Initially my brain was trying to decipher the sumbolism behind the endevours of painting those mechanisms and the metaphors he meants for them to carry through to the viewers. Then of course I'm going back to what initially sparked my interest which were the huge cracks in the glass. Why were they there? I was immediately bombarded with questions, of course. Though provoking is what comes to mind when I see this work of art, as well as most of Duchamps work. It is, to me, one of the most successful things an artist can do for their viewers and something that I am currently striving for in my own work and will probably continue to do for the rest of my life.