toutfait.com
Schippling 2015-19 (click for larger image)
"Say it’s not a Duchamp. Turn it over and it is."
Cage (1967)
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toutfait.com |
Schippling 2015-19 (click for larger image) |
Constructed to Duchamp's specifications, this is perhaps, if it is even, the most obscure Readymade, ever. The title may refer to La Gare d'Austerlitz (a Parisian railroad station), La Bataille d'Austerlitz (a Napoleonic battle), or merely La Bagarre (a fight). Signed by Duchamp and Rrose Selavy -- who previously copyrighted "Fresh Widow" as well -- it creates much confusion in the ranks.
"Like Bagarre d'Austerlitz it [referring to Door, 11 rue Larrey] is a gesture that presents absence, but it does so by subtraction as opposed to the additive superimposition of that earlier work."
Naegele (2006)
I have seen no discussion of who might be responsible for the faux brickwork so it is (possibly) interesting to note that it may be one of the last actual paintings executed by Duchamp himself.
In researching this piece I discovered that anyone with an internet connection and a PayPal account can purchase a hand-painted reproduction of this work from Artisoo.com:
Our average artist is a university graduate with an advanced degree in art who, apart from working for our company, also develops his own portfolio of original art. The average age of our artists is 33. The youngest is just 27 years old and the oldest above 60. Our artists tend to specialize in a certain style or in works of a certain master - such as Vincent Van Gogh or Claude Monet, and as such we commission orders to the artist who is most likely to do the best job.
Arisoo (2015)
Since supporting (presumably) foreign artists is a noble cause, my response here is to purchase a 13x20" Chinese hand-painted copy of a somewhat bad photograph of a sculpture with a faux-brick surface-treatment that Duchamp hired a carpenter to construct, and then to pay a professional framer to assemble the painting with it's provenance documentation in order to make the point of authorship clear: