Has Marcel Duchamp changed the world?

This neon comes from the practice of posing annual questions, however, remains separate from the series the daily questions and is closely linked to the project The incredulity of Saint Thomas. From one side, it connects to art history, from the other to the specific narratives developed throughout various series. It makes one ponder on how the ideas of the readymade and, further, readyframed can influence our life and the way we see and think about it.

The purpose of this neon is, simply speaking, to question the structures of the environment it becomes part of, and so, either an exhibition space or the space for work or life. And so, the ongoing discourse on the status and frame of the work reverts here back and forth.

-

In Martychowiec’s work, Duchamp becomes a symbolic placeholder for conceptual art in general. One could even go so far as to say that the artist identifies Duchamp with Christ – as the bearer of potential truth. The question of the neon lettering above the entrance to the Thesaurós could be understood in this sense: Has Marcel Duchamp changed the world? (From the text on the exhibition Message from the last man)