"Marcel, Marcel, I Love You like Hell [and so does Andy Warhol]!

My studies of Marcel Duchamp have led me to a number of profound conclusions. However, to quote my current art history teacher, Sara Sturdevant, perhaps the most significant conclusion in my experience has been, “Marcel, Marcel, I love you like hell!” Apparently I am not the only one. The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh currently has an exhibition on the relationship between the artworks of Duchamp and Warhol, entitled “A Twisted Pair.” Warhol took after Duchamp in many ways, aspiring, like the former, to challenge the viewer with optical illusions and controversial themes, including “sexuality…money, fame, and death” – a reflection on Pop Culture resulting from the counter-culture influence of Dada. While their first interactions were noted as early as 1962, many believe Warhol to have been acutely aware of Duchamp’s work far before then. Warhol was also a great collector of Duchamp’s work, owning over thirty pieces – an impressive collection considering Duchmap’s small output.

The curator of the exhibition, Matt Wrbican, draws a very literal comparison between the two artists over the course of the exhibition. He pairs each of their works, though somewhat simplistically, to convey the similar thematic and aesthetic trends that permeate the work of Duchamp and Warhol, as in the case of Duchamp’s “L.H.O.O.Q” and Warhol’s silkscreen images of the Mona Lisa. However, I very much appreciated the comparison between Duchamp’s “Coeur Volant” (Fluttering Heart), a silkscreen on paper work created between 1936 and 1961, and Warhol’s “Album of a Mat Queen,” a silkscreen ink and graphite work on linen, created in 1962. Within each piece, the artist delves into color study to create illusions of depth and movement. While the red within each piece recedes, and the blue pushes itself forward, their relationship allows for a sense of layered space that projects from the composition. At the same time, the varied amounts of each color in relation to one another result in a sense of vibration that encompasses each work, as though the artists have condensed the energy of opposing colors within similarly small frames. This dynamic force within Duchamp’s work explains its title, as the featured heart appears to “flutter” with the energy between the two opposing colors, red and blue, while he also applies the “colloquial French expression for the romantic emotion felt by lovers toward the object of their desire.” Warhol, in fact, owned a print of “Fluttering Heart,” (number 11/24 of the 1968 edition), and was likely very influenced by this color study in his own creation of “Album of a Mat Queen.” The comparisons that Wrbican draws between the two artists are very literal, as in the case of the similar colors and optical illusions between “Coeur Volant” and “Album of a Mat Queen.” However, they effectively reinforce the significance of each artist within the course of history, as he designates their position as reactions to what came before and predecessors to what comes next. A job well done.

Please note that all quotations are from narratives posted on the walls of the exhibition.