The Brooklyn Rail

The issue of Marcel Duchamp’s influence is a thorny one, since you are compelled to define the word influence, just as you are obligated to define the word art when confronted with the readymade. Sometimes an influence is obvious, particularly in works of art where sources can be easily spotted. But then you have to find out if these visual similarities are genuine or simply coincidental. Even with works that appear to have been influenced by Duchamp, I have encountered instances where visual similarities have proven invalid, as in cases where an artist asserted that they were unfamiliar with the work by Duchamp that I identified as a source, or they flatly deny the influence. In the latter scenario, you have to decide whether or not you believe the artist, as many have been known to deny sources, even when they appear obvious. One way or another, it has caused me to come up with an entirely new word: SINfluence, placing the letter “S” in front of the word “influence” as do Italians when indicating a word is its complete opposite (as in comodo, which means comfortable, and scomodo, which means uncomfortable). It also turns the first three letters into the word “SIN,” indicating the degree of transgressiveness and regret indicated by such an egregious assumption.

Artists are aware of errors like this made by critics and art historians, and at least two of them have dealt with it directly. The first instance is a painting made in 1998 by San Francisco artist Donald Bradford called The Burden of History, where the late Calvin Tomkins’s definitive biography of Marcel Duchamp, which had then only just appeared, is positioned atop books on painting, art exhibitions, drawing, a monograph on the Belgian artist Luc Tuymans (who was then all the rage), and, at the bottom of the pile, a tabletop book on the history of American painting that was published about twenty years earlier. Bradford has stated that the choice of these books was meant to convey a specific message, in this case, the overwhelming influence of Marcel Duchamp in history, one that, once recognized, is all pervasive and affects virtually every thinking artist who came in contact with his work.

The other work I had in mind is by the artist and critic Kenny Schachter, who is best known today for his contributions to the publication Artnet. He is intimately familiar with the work of Marcel Duchamp and, in 1996, created a work that features a photograph of the artist taken in 1959 holding the deluxe edition of the first monograph about his work which Schachter replaced with the words: “I AM NOT A ROLE MODEL.” For those who saw this work at that time, it would have immediately brought to mind a controversial television advertisement for Nike that appeared in 1993 and featured the basketball player Charles Barkley telling viewers that he should not be regarded as a role model. It begins by showing Barkley’s face in close focus as he says: “I am not a role model. I’m not paid to be a role model.” As he is viewed dribbling on a court and making baskets, he continues: “I’m paid to wreak havoc on the basketball court. Parents should be role models. Just because I dunk a basketball doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.” The message in this advertisement is as clear today as it was then. In this period, many assigned Duchamp the identity of a role model, but just as Barkley warned his fans, the tribute is ill placed, particularly among young artists who abuse Duchamp’s concept of a readymade to its extreme, creating, in some cases, terrible art in the process.