“The notebook of unrealized art”. Pablo Echaurren thinks of Marcel Duchamp.

This exhibition has been created thanks to the donation of some of Pablo Echaurren's unrealized projects to MoRE Museum. The artist had previously collaborated with the museum of the unrealized works, once in 2019 thanks to an initial donation Artisti coraggiosi Natura Morta - 2 (1971-1974) curated by Raffaella Perna, and later in 2021 with participation in the conference Lockdown of the project together with Cristina Casero.

This virtual exhibition “The notebook of unrealized art”. Pablo Echaurren thinks of Marcel Duchamphas made it possible to create another collaboration between MoRE Museum and MAMbo, the Museum of Modern Art of Bologna, which at the same time opens a solo exhibition in the Pablo Echaurren project room curated by Sara De Chiara.

quaderno per home page

If the exhibition hosted by the Bologna Museum aims to investigate the relationship between Echaurren and the city of Bologna by focusing on a central date (for both) such as 1977, the virtual exhibition abandons the artist's political approach to investigate less known aspects revolving around Marcel Duchamp.

As already underlined by Cristina Casero and Raffaella Perna, it is possible to understand the work of Pablo Echaurren as the "negation of the work as a fetish".

This line of interpretation (in addition to connoting the artist's work in a direction of Duchampian aesthetics) finds fertile ground in the whole design of the museum of unrealized works

Although Duchamp has been an important figure for the artist (indeed he dedicated numerous projects to him, including realized ones), Duchamp and Echaurren never met. However, their virtual meeting was possible through two important figures, Gianfranco Baruchello and Arturo Schwarz.

The interpretation of Echaurren’s works through the filter of this political activity is indeed now consolidated as it has been investigated considering the projects with Indiani metropolitani, his pollical activism, and his collaboration with the newspaper Lotta Continua.

The intention of this virtual exhibition, to give a different interpretation to the MAMbo exhibition, is to highlight the several aspects that relate to the two artists and that makes Echaurren reflect on the most hidden aspects of the famous French artist.

Echaurren's production is rich and heterogeneous, ranging from painting, illustration, comics, ceramics, record covers, and over fifty books, including “Duchamp politique”. In this book, Echaurren explores the French artist's work on an existential level, the anti-system one that is the Duchamp who rejected the art market.

Even before the publication of this book, in 1977 Echaurren wrote “Dall’io al noi. Da Duchamp a Duchamps. U/siamo tutti Duchamp. Non è una questione di eleggere un oggetto ad un’opera d’arte (ready made). Questa è una mistificazione del mercato che cerca oggetti da vendere e totemizzare. Non è questione di eleggere un oggetto ad opera d’arte stessa (la sua funzione di feticcio) in un oggetto di uso comune”. [1] This phrase, already quoted by Raffaella Perna, confirms Echaurren's interest in Marcel Duchamp. The French artist becomes a sort of fil rouge for most of Echaurren's works.

In fact, there are many projects in which Echaurren reinterprets Duchamp (not only through the magnifying glass of the ready-made) but rather a Duchamp far from the art market and from the idea of a work of art as a fetish, a more cerebral Duchamp who sheds his persona to offer himself to the Roman artist almost in a private space.

This exhibition, therefore, moves on these assumptions and wants to explore this lesser-known aspect of the artist. Research that goes beyond the usual political approach and wants to enhance a group of projects in which Duchamp is a point of reference. The exhibition is therefore composed of a small selection of unrealized works where emerges the desire to not adhere to the Duchampian language of the ready-made, but rather to a Duchampian ethic of artistic work, if it can be defined as such.

Therefore, the virtual exhibition starts with few pages of a notebook, almost all of Echaurren's projects have been conceived on this medium. These pages return notes written before drawings, they are transcribed ideas that bring out the artist's design methodology which is based first of all on writing.

In the booklet of 1977, a fundamental date for the artist as he decided to retire from the art world, we read the title of a page “Il quaderno dell’arte non fatta. Solo pensata. Solo appuntata” (“The notebook of unrealized art. Only thought. Only written down”).

The notebook is divided into various writings and on the second page already emerge the figure of Duchamp and the practice of the Exquisite Corpse, which is taken as a model of a project where authorship is lost.

Anyway, not many unrealized projects surface from the booklet, but only one in which Duchamp is still a key figure. In fact, Echaurren wants to dedicate a sort of parade to the French artist through the creation of silent banners (without any writing), or through banners showing the question or exclamation mark only. This project is a sort of conceptual parade that reflects the French artist’s work.

The third project is based on Duchamp's famous ready-made Bicycle Wheel, which is sketched with a blue pen on a piece of paper. En attendant la mariée (2012) consists of a written and a drawn part, the drawing shows a complex installation project built with a bicycle wheel, a spinning wheel and a system of threads coming down from the ceiling through chrysalises.

The fourth work is entitled Monumento fortuito (2015), realized with a blue pen on a squared sheet, without drawings or notes of a different nature.  The project is written only. Eucharren wants to create a monument for the French artist through "a leftover, a human waste" found on the street.

The last two project are two small sculptures: the first one is Mon Alice (2018), a plastic figurine of "Alice from Wonderland" with a mustache drawn in ink, clearly quoting Duchamp's work on the Mona Lisa; while the second work is a small sculpture of a monkey with an iron, the design quotes Duchamp's famous phrase of using a Rembrandt as an ironing board. The first title clearly shows the quote and shows how Echaurren works on a famous contemporary icon of Disney world, following a path already traced by the French artist.

These works highlight how important it is for Echaurren to work on a continuous rethinking of Duchampian themes.

This exhibition starts from the first youthful project of 1977 to move drastically to the last decades, this sudden leap shows how the French artist always remains a pivotal node. Echaurren approaches and reflects on all the elements that punctuate Duchamp's work: from the ready-made to the masculine and feminine shift. He also touches on his famous exhibitions such as the International Surrealist Exhibition held in New York (1942).

 

  

[1] Pablo Echaurren, from the notebook Macchine coniugi, Duchamp, Flussi, 1977, preserved at the Fondazione Echaurren Salaris, Roma.