Marcel Duchamp began his career as a painter of conventional portraits and nudes. By 1912, however, he set out to prove the end of “retinal art”—pictures created to delight the eye—in order to “put painting once again at the service of the mind.” His answer was the “readymade,” an ordinary object transformed into a work of art by virtue of the artist selecting it. Taken out of context, repositioned, and signed by the artist, the readymade upended tradition and artistic convention by revolutionizing the way we think about what an artwork is, how it is produced, and the ways in which it is exhibited.
In 1914 Duchamp purchased this mass-produced bottle rack at a department store. He felt free to acquire new versions for exhibitions and display after his sister accidentally discarded the “original.” He selected the present version for the 1959 exhibition Art and the Found Object in New York. Artist Robert Rauschenberg acquired Bottle Rack and asked Duchamp to sign it. He obliged, writing in French, “Impossible for me to recall the original phrase M.D. / Marcel Duchamp /1960.”
Date
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Inscribed on inner side of bottom ring: “Impossible de me rappeler la phrase originale M.D./ Marcel Duchamp/1960”
Dimensions
Diameter at base: 59.1 × 36.8 cm (23 5/16 × 14 1/2 in.); 59.1 × 36.2 cm (23 1/4 × 14 1/4 in.)
Credit Line
Through prior gifts of Mary and Leigh Block, Mr. and Mrs. Maurice E. Culberg, and Mr. and Mrs. James W. Alsdorf; Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection Fund; through prior gift of Mary and Earle Ludgin Collection; Sheila Anne Morgenstern in memory of Dorothy O. Morgenstern and William V. Morgenstern; through prior bequests of Joseph Winterbotham and Mima de Manziarly Porter; Ada Turnbull Hertle and Modern Discretionary funds
Reference Number
2017.422
Extended information about this artwork
Ermanno Migliorini and Roberto Paolo Malaspin, Lo scolabottiglie di Duchamp, (Milan: Johan & Levi Editore, 2023), cover (color ill.), 9-13.
New York, American Federation of the Arts, Art and the Found Object, Jan. 12–Feb. 6, 1959, no. cat.; Williamstown, Williams College, Feb. 22–Mar. 15; Bloomfield Hills, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Apr. 8–28; Arts Club of Chicago, May 22–June 17; University of Notre Dame, July 1–21; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Sept. 18–Oct. 18; Poughkeepsie, Vassar College, Nov. 4–24; Waltham, MA., Brandeis University, Goldfarb Library, Dec. 15, 1959–Jan. 15, 1960.
New York, Museum of Modern Art, The Art of Assemblage, Oct. 4–Nov. 12, 1961, cat. 75; Dallas Museum of Contemporary Arts, Jan. 9–Feb. 11, 1962; San Francisco Museum of Art, Mar. 5–Apr. 15, 1962.
Pasadena Art Museum, Marcel Duchamp: A Retrospective Exhibition, Oct. 8–Nov. 3, 1963, cat. no. 54.
Miami, Art Museum, Florida International University, The Marcel Duchamp Exhibition, Sept. 20–Oct. 16, 1985.
Houston, Menil Collection, Surrealism: Selections from the Menil Collection, June 7, 1987–Oct. 24, 1988, no cat.
Cologne, Ludwig Museum, Besides, It’s Always Other People Who Die: Marcel Duchamp and the Avant–Garde Since 1950, Jan. 15–Mar. 6, 1988, no cat. no.
Basel, Museum Jean Tinguely, Marcel Duchamp, Mar. 20–June 30, 2002, cat. no. 38.
Dallas Museum of Art, Dialogues: Duchamp, Cornell, Johns, Rauschenberg, Sept. 4–2005–Jan. 8, 2006, cat. 7.
London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design, Mar. 29–Jul. 22, 2007, cat 2.15; Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Sept. 29, 2007–Jan. 6, 2008; Bilbao, Guggenheim Museum, Mar. 3–Sept. 7, 2008; Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, May 9–Aug. Aug 30, 2009.
Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, New Realisms: 1957–1962: Object Strategies between Readymade and Spectacle, Jun. 16–Oct. 4, 2010, no cat. no.
New York, Gagosian Gallery, The Private Collection of Robert Rauschenberg, Nov. 3–Dec. 23, 2011, no cat. no.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Dancing around the Bride: Cage, Cunningham, Johns, Rauschenberg and Duchamp, Oct. 30, 2012–Jan. 21, 2013; London, Barbican Art Gallery, Feb. 14–June 9, 2013, no cat. no.
New York, Gagosian Gallery, Marcel Duchamp, June 26–Aug. 29, 2014, no cat. no.
Washington D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Marvelous Objects: Surrealist Sculpture from Paris to New York, Oct. 29, 2015–Feb. 15, 2016, cat. 2.
New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Robert Rauschenberg: Among Friends, May 21–Sept. 17, 2017, no cat. no.
The artist; sold to Robert Rauschenberg through the American Federation of the Arts, c. 1959-60; bequeathed to the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation; sold through Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2017.
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