Now at the SCHIRN: Suzanne Duchamp. Retrospective

In February 1916, the revolutionary Dada movement was established at the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich by Tristan Tzara and others as an artistic protest against the First World War and the prevailing social order. The Dadaists wanted to disturb the public and demonstrate the absurdity of reality through the usage of new materials and found objects, as well as language and performance. Dada groups arose in New York with Marcel Duchamp, Jean Crotti—whom Suzanne Duchamp married in 1919—Francis Picabia, Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, and Beatrice Wood, as well as in Cologne, Berlin, and Paris. Suzanne Duchamp, who was part of the Paris group, worked as a nurse during the First World War, and also appeared in the journals and magazines of the Dada movement. It was also during these years that she developed some of her pioneering key works.

The SCHIRN shows various large Dadaist material collages such as “Radiation de deux seuls éloignés” (Radiation of Two Solitary Separates, 1916–20) and “Ariette d’oubli de la chapelle étourdie” (Arietta of Oblivion of the Dazed Chapel, 1920), in which she incorporated a number of found elements—beads, metallic paper, string, glass, and wood. Working in dialogue with her brother Marcel Duchamp and with the New York Dada scene, Suzanne Duchamp helped invent the technique of collage. In her works “Multiplication brisée et rétablié” (Broken and Restored Multiplication, 1918–19) and “Solitude-Entonnoir” (Solitude-Funnel, 1921), she probed the boundaries and possibilities of various media. Like other Dadaists, Duchamp integrated poetic language into her pictorial works. The titles of her pictures and her painted inscriptions became independent elements of the composition. For example, the minimalist yet visually striking works “Usine de mes pensées” (Factory of My Thoughts, 1920) and “Fabrique de joie” (Factory of Joy, 1920) took up the visual language of industrial architecture and the then pressing question of the relationship between mechanization and emotions. The artist also worked with her brother Marcel Duchamp on his readymades. The retrospective includes her large-format painting “Le Readymade malheureux de Marcel” (Marcel’s Unfortunate Readymade, ca. 1919–20) emerged from the siblings’ exchanges.

The Second World War represented a major turning point for Suzanne Duchamp. We know very little about her artistic works from these years. She spent much of the time with Jean Crotti in the south of France and also was sometimes in Paris, accompanied on occasion by her brothers Marcel Duchamp and Jacques Villon. Her paintings were now limited to scenes from her daily surroundings, most often landscapes painted in intensely hued colors that diverged from those of nature, as in “La ferme Toussus” (Toussus, 1943) and “Sans titre (Paysage)” (Untitled (Landscape), 1943).

After 1945, Suzanne Duchamp had new opportunities to exhibit her works, and was able to travel abroad again. Family portraits remained central to her oeuvre. In the 1950s, Suzanne Duchamp received prominent attention in several exhibitions for her important contribution to the avant-garde, in particular for her dynamic combination of painting, poetry, and collage. From the mid-1950s, in line with the spirit of the times, she devoted herself increasingly to abstraction, especially following the death of Jean Crotti in 1958. The late work “Le Monde souterrain” (The Underworld, 1961) reflects her ongoing examination of the painterly interaction of color and form within pictorial space, while simultaneously exploring the limits of life itself. Duchamp remained active as an artist who consistently sought new forms of expression until her death in 1963.