The Last Videotapes of Marcel Duchamp

1976, 32:03 min, b&w and color, sound

In 1976, The Kitchen in New York announced a program of rare videotapes by Marcel Duchamp. These crude, shaky documents of Duchamp's Greenwich Village neighborhood were actually an elaborate performance piece, conceived and executed by Sanborn. Participants and co-conspirators Hannah Wilke, Shigeko Kubota and Russell Connor, who had interviewed Duchamp for American television in 1964, commented on the artist's prophetic genius in heralding the new medium of video. Sanborn paid tribute to the influence that Duchamp's theory of "found" art and manipulation of chance had on the development of video as an art form.

Thanks: Alan Neill, John Brandeis, Russell Connor, Howard Wise, Bill Viola, Carlotta Schoolman, Michael Shamberg, Bob Stearns, Eric Bogosian. Special Thanks: Hannah Wilke, Shigeko Kubota. Shigekio Kubota Segment Courtesy TV Lab's VTR Series "Video Gallery." Hannah Wilke Segments "Sugar Giver," "Philly" Video by Andy Mann of her Performance at the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the German TV Film "Homage to Marcel Duchamp." Duchamp/Connor Interview from "Museum Open House" Courtesy Russell Connor. Editing and Post-Production Provided by Electronic Arts Intermix, Inc., which is supported by NYSCA and NEA as well as by funds from the Rockefeller Foundation and individuals. Producer: John Sanborn.

 

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