MoMa Essay

Marcel Duchamp 

In Advance of the Broken Arm

August 1964 (fourth version, after lost original of November 15, 1915)

     I found this piece of art to be very funny, strange but interesting as this shovel free-hangs from the ceiling by a strong wire. At first I didn't understand at all how this was art, but then remembering that Marcel Duchamp's art revolved around Surrealism, it started to get to me. Surrealism art made people use their imagination, making them think outside the box about everyday life objects and just to basically awake the unconscious mind of the people. Also influenced by Karl Marx, surrealism tries to reveal this contradiction in the everyday world and I agree with this because this piece of art, In Advance of the Broken Arm, already brings this contradictory ring to it. This shovel was just one example of Marc Duchamp's many "readymades" sculptures. He believed that selecting mass-produced functional objects and going against this traditional thought of the use of an object resulted in art. What I mean by this is that this shovel for example, is a snow shovel that traditionally, people would use to dig out heavy snow to clear a pathway or get a car out of deep snow, something like that. When you read the title although, it alludes to something interesting. Marcel Duchamp chose this title for this specific sculpture to playfully allude the purpose of a snow shovel. He suggests, "that without a shovel to remove snow, one might fall and break an arm." Funny right?

Louise Bourgeois. Spider (Cell). 1997

     This very large piece of art was just overwhelming. It was definitely very eye catching and the story behind this large sculpture is beautiful. A little bit of background behind Louise Bourgeois' artwork, they all either symbolize herself or someone part of her life, for example, her children, her husband and her 3 children. This particular piece of art represents her mother. Now, Louise was very fond in spiders and the reason being, as she states, "The spider-why the spider? Because my best friend was my mother and she was deliberate, clever, patient, soothing, reasonable, dainty, subtle, indispensable, neat, and as useful as a spider." Typically, spider webs are wide and stretched out to catch their food, but this spider's wed is enclosed. With a chair inside the enclosed web and beautiful tapestries inside as well, it's to create this peaceful and some-what relaxing area to be in. The tapestries symbolized her mother as well because she was a tapestry restorer. Even though this spider represents Louise's mother, I can also see it in the point where this spider represents Louise herself and she is sheltering her 3 children, which is shown with the 3 eggs at the top of the enclosed web.