Apropos of Marcel: Making Art after Marcel Duchamp in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Preface: It is with great pleasure that the Curt Marcus Gallery presents an exhibition based on the artistic strategy of appropriation. In its more profound conceptual implications, appropriation has intrigued artists, critics, and even philosophers since it first appeared in the mid-1960s (and again with a new generation of artists in the 80s). Organized by noted Dada scholar Francis M. Naumann, this exhibition concentrate on work appropriated after Marcel Duchamp, the first artist in this century to consciously and systematically replicate his own work (ironically in an effort to avoid repeating himself). With great conviction, we believe that the four artists whose work is included in this exhibition - Richard Pettibone, Elaine Sturtevant, Sherrie Levine, and Mike Bidlo - are the purest and most logical inheritors of Duchamp's lasting legacy. In Naumann informative and provocative essay, he not only provides a survey of the work these artists appropriated after Duchamp, but in his conclusion, he addresses issues that are at the core of the appropriative process. It is hoped that this exhibition and its accompanying catalogue will contribute to a greater understanding of these artists' work-as well as the ideas that inspired it.... "What appears most important and original in Naumann's study is how he has managed to redirect the complexity of Duchamp's cerebral achievement and apply it to an understanding of four younger artists whose appropriated work, from my vantage point, represents the ultimate legacy of Duchamp's most important and critical contribution to the history of twentieth century art." - Robert Rosenblum, Prof of Fine Arts, NYU..."For quite a long time, I kept hoping that appropriation art was not something I had to think about. Well, I was wrong. In this lively and spirited essay, Francis Naumann shows us why, and reveals yet another aspect of Duchamp's protean influence." - Calvin Tomkins, New Yorker writer