Correspondence preserved by Mary Dreier testifies to copious efforts on her part as well as those of her sister, Katherine, Alfred Barr, Walter Arensberg, and others to reach the U.S. His departure for the USA now seems uncertain” (Tomkins, Biography 327). As his friend, Henri-Pierre Roché noted in a diary entry on July 14, 1941, “It is the first time I have seen him a little down. The breezy description offered in Time magazine of Duchamp’s departure belies the anxiety the artist experienced in attempting to leave war-torn Europe. 1 And, indeed, Duchamp’s own escape from Vichy-occupied France was harrowing.
As the ship’s manifest for the Serpa Pinto reveals, a significant number, if not a majority, of passengers, were of Jewish descent. Although Duchamp assured the author of the article that “the Germans and the British had authorized the trip” on the vessel, which hailed from the neutral nation of Portugal, there is no question that Duchamp understood the danger was real (Tomkins, Biography 327–28). visa in Marseille on the strength of an affidavit from a friend in Hollywood (… Walter Conrad Arensberg, who bought his Nude Descending).” The article goes on to include Duchamp’s description of the trip as “perfectly darling” and “perfectly delicious” with “dancing on deck every night.” (102).ĭuchamp’s lighted-hearted account of his departure, in stark contrast with the devastating experiences of many of his friends and acquaintances, including both his companion at the time, Mary Reynolds, who worked at great personal risk for the French Resistance, and the historian and philosopher Walter Benjamin, who tragically took his own life during an attempted escape from Occupied France, suggests a performance in its own right. “He said he posed as a cheese merchant-got out of Occupied France without any trouble at all, finally got a U.S. “Dadaist Duchamp’s account of his own flight sounded like a whimsically eventful Cook’s tour,” wrote the unnamed author. 2).Īppropriately, then, “Artist Descending to America” liberally quoted the artist’s account of his transition from France to the United States during World War II. Those in the know might also have appreciated the piece’s echo of Bessie Breuer’s 1915 interview with the artist, “The Nude-Descending-a-Staircase Man Surveys us,” heralding his first arrival in the United States (Fig. The humorous title functioned as an inside joke, clearly referencing Marcel Duchamp’s well-known Nude Descending a Staircase, No. On September 7, 1942, initiated readers may have smiled when they encountered “Artist Descending to America” in Time magazine. Keywords: Marcel Duchamp / Fountain / conceptual art / readymade / dada
Mutt and “The Richard Mutt Case,” The Blind Man, no.
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