Octavio Paz conveying “his awareness of Duchamp as a great cautionary figure in our culture, warning us with jest and quiet scandals of the menacing encroachment of criticism, science and even art.” —New York Times Book Review

Drawing on the primary sources and little known publications from museum archives, collections in the region, and privately owned archives, Art and Visual Culture on the Riviera, 1956-1971 offers the first in-depth study of the Ecole de Nice. The author shows how artists indigenous to the region challenged the dominance of Paris as the national standard at this moment of French decentralization efforts, and growing internationalism in the arts.

With an introduction by Robert Motherwell and an appreciation by Jasper Johns "Marcel Duchamp, one of this century's pioneer artists, moved his work through the retinal boundaries which had been established with Impressionism into a field where language, thought and vision act upon one another. There it changed form through a complex interplay of new mental and physical materials, heralding many of the technical, mental and visual details to be found in more recent art. . . "In the 1920s Duchamp gave up, quit painting. He allowed, perhaps encouraged, the attendant mythology. One thought of his decision, his willing this stopping. Yet on one occasion, he said it was not like that. He spoke of breaking a leg. 'You don't mean to do it,' he said. "The Large Glass. A greenhouse for his intuition. Erotic machinery, the Bride, held in a see-through cage-'a Hilarious Picture.' Its cross references of sight and thought, the changing focus of the eyes and mind, give fresh sense to the time and space we occupy, negate any concern with art as transportation. No end is in view in this fragment of a new perspective. 'In the end you lose interest, so I didn't feel the necessity to finish it.' "He declared that he wanted to kill art ('for myself') but his persistent attempts to destroy frames of reference altered our thinking, established new units of thought, 'a new thought for that object.' "The art community feels Duchamp's presence and his absence. He has changed the condition of being here."--Jasper Johns, from Marcel Duchamp: An Appreciation

The Riviera in the 1950s and 1960s was culturally rich with modernist icons such as Matisse and Picasso in residence, but also a burgeoning tourist culture, that established the C?d'Azur as a center of indigenous artists associated with Nouveau R?isme, Fluxus, and Supports/Surfaces, emerged under the mantle of the "Ecole de Nice." Drawing on the primary sources and little known publications generated during the period from museum archives, collections in the region, and privately owned archives, this study integrates material published in monographic studies of individuals and art movements, to offer the first in-depth study of this important movement in twentieth-century art. The author situates the work of the Ecole de Nice within the broader social currents that are so important in contextualizing this phenomenon within this internal region of France, and underscores why this work was so significant at this historical moment within the context of the broader European art scene, and contemporary American art, with which it shared affinities. Despite their stylistic differences, and associations with groups that are generally considered distinct, O'Neill discloses that these artists shared conceptual affinities?theatrical modes of presentation based on appropriation, use of the ready-made, and a determination to counter style-driven painting associated with the postwar Ecole de Paris. Art and Visual Culture on the Riviera, 1956-1971 suggests that the emergence of an Ecole de Nice internally eroded the dominance of Paris as the national standard at this moment of French decentralization efforts, and that these artists fostered a model of aesthetic pluralism that remained locally distinct yet fully engaged with international vanguard trends of the 1960s.

Shortlisted for the 2021 Vine Awards Art, chess, and an $87,000 pipe frame an inside look at the relationship between Dadaist artist Marcel Duchamp and chess Grandmaster George Koltanowski Spanning three decades, two continents, two world wars, and the international art and chess scenes of the mid twentieth century, Duchamp's Pipe explores the remarkable friendship between art world enfant terrible Marcel Duchamp and blindfold chess champion George Koltanowski. Artist and cultural historian Celia Rabinovitch describes each man's rise to prominence, the chess matches that sparked their relationship, and the recently discovered pipe that Duchamp gave to Koltanowski. This tale of genius and resilience offers fresh insights into the essence of the gift in the bohemian underground. Rabinovitch invites us to discover the chess wizard and a Duchamp slightly off pedestal--and ultimately more human.