Like a hall of mirrors or a Borgesian labyrinth, Duchamp’s oeuvre asks us to look at the past reflecting endlessly into the future. In an interview today, scholar Thierry de Duve praises a kind of mise en abyme in MoMA’s new Duchamp show, which features not one but seven “boîtes-en-valise” — the artist’s clever miniature exhibitions-in-a-box, created decades before his first museum retrospective. This is “Duchamp’s typical genius,” de Duve tells Associate Editor Lisa Yin Zhang. “I think he anticipated the logic of the museum.” Read their conversation, in which de Duve muses on what it means to live in a “post-Duchamp” world.
Also today, our writers bring you art-fair dispatches from Chicago to São Paulo and back to New York, where prints abound. And if you’re around this Wednesday, April 15, join MacArthur “Genius” grant winner Tonika Lewis Johnson and me for a virtual talk on her social practice art and unlearning the logic of segregation.
—Valentina Di Liscia, senior editor
Marcel Duchamp Was the Messenger of History
“The art world changed,” scholar Thierry de Duve told us on the occasion of MoMA’s new show. “Duchamp’s ‘Fountain’ is the message that brings us the news.” | Lisa Yin Zhang
In Kyoung Chun: Make Room
Transparent houses, suspended structures, and intimate paintings serve as metaphors for belonging in this exhibition at the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston.
Art Fairs
The Paradoxical Delights of South America’s Biggest Art Fair
The 22nd edition of SP-Arte in São Paulo stands at a global nexus, yet feels decidedly regional. | Ela Bittencourt
Who Do Chicago’s Art Fairs Serve?
Expo Chicago and its orbit of shows reveal both the joys and pain points of the city’s current creative environment. | Natalie Jenkins
Process Is the Point at IFPDA Print Fair
“Print is a more democratic medium,” said Temma Nanas of Leslie Sacks Gallery, one of around 80 global galleries returning to the Park Avenue Armory for the annual fair. | Aaron Short
The Brooklyn Fine Art Print Fair Has Taken Off Its Training Wheels
Shaking off any initial caution from last year’s beta test, it has charged forward and made itself a space to showcase the radical history and present of printmaking. | Rhea Nayyar
Summer Marathons in Painting and Drawing at the New York Studio School
Join an immersive, two-week session and transform your studio practice. Online or in-person.
Queer Icons
Remembering Agosto Machado, Keeper of Queer Histories
The late performer and archivist spent decades as the quiet holder of our secrets, always behind the scenes, always a connector. | Ela Troyano
A View From the Easel
This week, artist Billy Biondi blends painting and dancing, and Katya Granova works inside a former yarn factory.
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Member Comment
Michael Szpakowski on John Yau’s “Jasper Johns Keeps Looking”:
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From the Archive
The Dada Catalogue Marcel Duchamp Designed to Be Thrown Away
For a 1953 Dada exhibition, Marcel Duchamp designed a one-page catalogue meant to be crumpled up and tossed in the trash. | Allison Meier
