Marcel’s Blagues: Duchamp’s Linguistic Jokes

Abstract

Thomas Girst laments, in The Duchamp Dictionary, ‘most writing on Duchamp introduces humour as an afterthought, at best playing lip service to what was for him “a great power” and “liberation”’. Perhaps, Girst thought, ‘Humour, by definition, escapes the seriousness of scholarly scrutiny, yet it is through humour that Duchamp questions its very raison d’être’. While agreeing with Girst’s general point, I will argue that Duchamp’s humour isn’t particularly aimed at debunking scholarly scrutiny—as if his humour is a form of anti-intellectualism—but has the positive purpose of establishing the raison d’̂etre of his art. The reason it has been overlooked is less the humourlessness of scholars and more the theoretical turn that art took in the 1960s, with the advent of conceptual art and its paradigms largely framing the reception of Duchamp’s art. Much of Duchamp’s humour has been overlooked in favour of highly complex and theoretical readings of his work, following his adoption by art theorists as an historical anchor for many different contemporary (post-1960s) art forms. Larry Witham rhetorically asks: ‘had Duchamp really invented just about everything in Contemporary art?’ To Duchamp’s amusement, fame came late. While he had a small, loyal, even cult, following in American surrealist circles, the mainstream art world considered Duchamp a relatively minor artist for most of his life. His luck turned in the 1960s, with a new generation of conceptual artists. A 2004 survey of artists and art professionals acknowledged him as the most important artist in the twentieth century. Further, the scholarship has for the most part taken place in the United States, an Anglophone environment that easily misses the subtle linguistic ironies that drive his humour. Consequently, contemporary scholarship of Duchamp tends to earnestly understand his visual art practice, rather than laugh with its jokes.