Marcel Duchamp
Nu Descendant Un Escalier

Living for the sake of art.

In early May, I visited the exhibition on Futurist Avant-gardes at the Scuderie del Quirinale; the first floor struck me with the strong animalistic smell of the guide, who fervently explained not just intellectually "The Funeral of the Anarchist Galli" by Carlo Carrà, a overwhelming dynamism that left me puzzled by the expressive force it communicated.

The second floor, however, which opened with a sculpture by Boccioni, had something more, and not just because of the co-presence of two icons of cubism like Pablo Picasso and Braque. Indeed, amid the superficial glances of common folk and forced school trip classes, my eye was caught by "Nu Descendant Un Escalier" (1912-16); watercolor, ink, pencil, and pastel on photographic paper, m. 1.47 x 0.89.

Beyond mere critical explanation, the rendering is an ochre and light brown orgasm, an icon-painting that encapsulates the importance that "Les Demoiselles D'Avignon" had five years prior by challenging cubism and the research into the static nature of the subject. Duchamp, opposed to purely retinal painting, would end up becoming a leading figure of Dadaism, for which the artwork must be replaced by the pure aesthetic fact. Even though I was enthused by the vision, I do not understand why it was associated with Futurism given the absence of an analogous relationship between two completely different inquiries.

For the Futurists (beyond the various "mooings" present in Marinetti's manifesto), motion is speed, a physical force that deforms bodies to the limit of elasticity, an objective condition that gives the moving object a different shape compared to the stationary one. For Marcel Duchamp, it does not determine a change in configuration, but the modification is felt in the structure, dismembering the object, altering the morphology of the internal organs.

Image: drops of LSD on cardboard.

The movement of a person descending the stairs is repetitive, mechanical.

For the skepticism and irony displayed in a work still somewhat youthful and not as mature as his more recent productions, Duchamp proves to be a McLuhan ante litteram in denouncing technology as the devil come to alter the face of the world.

Total contestation of human existence, a sort of magic, encompassing all the techniques that man over time has made his own and through which he has expressed his existence.

Exhibiting this painting in New York in 1913 not only challenged modern culture in the globalized and capitalist society par excellence but also through a painting further emphasized the ridiculous human mythomania, the intellectual domination that, in the wake of wars and plundering, had not yet reached the cosmic levels of mass culture present in contemporary times.

A blasphemy in church, Di Canio at the liberation party, a reversal of ironic and narcissistic language, violent in its assertion as a prophet of non-conformity.