Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel

12 November 2012

Bicycle Wheel (Roue de Bicyclette), 1998
Ben Jakober and Yannick Vu
Carbon bicycle wheel, Philippe Stark’s design stool
153 x 63 x 30 cm
Pablo Rico Collection, Mexico 


In 1998 Ben Jakober and Yannick Vu collaborated on an obvious remake of Marcel Duchamp’s Roue de Bicyclette, his first “readymade” object. Duchamp combined a bicycle wheel, a fork and a stool to create a machine which served no purpose, subverting accepted norms of art. The original, 1913 version was lost, but Duchamp re-created the object in 1951. Vu and Jakober’s version uses a carbon wheel and a stool designed by Phillippe Starck.

Roue de Bicyclette
Marcel Duchamp, 1951 (third version, after lost original of 1913)
Metal wheel mounted on painted wood stool
129.5 x 63.5 x 41.9 cm
The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection

Turquerie

Turquerie

Having penetrated the Balkans in the fourteenth century, conquered Constantinople in the fifteenth, and reached the gates of Vienna in the sixteenth, the Ottoman Empire long struck fear into European hearts. 

Giorgio de Chirico

Giorgio de Chirico

Giorgio de Chirico was born on July 10, 1888, in Volos, Greece, to an Italian family. His mother, Gemma Cervetto, was from a family of Genoa origin, but most likely she was born in Izmir. His father, Evaristo, was born on June 21, 1841 in the Büyükdere district of Istanbul.

I Copy Therefore I Am

I Copy Therefore I Am

Suggesting alternative models for new social and economic systems, SUPERFLEX works appear before us as energy systems, beverages, sculptures, copies, hypnosis sessions, infrastructure, paintings, plant nurseries, contracts, or specifically designed public spaces.