[Music]
Although he trained as a painter, 
the French artist Marcel Duchamp
is known for the radical break he made from
 traditional art forms by inventing the ‘readymade’ -
a term he coined to refer 
to an existing object
that is taken from its original context and
regarded as a work of art.
In the 1910s Duchamp began 
appropriating ready-made objects
including a bicycle wheel, a shovel, and a urinal,
which he then signed, re-titled and presented 
as artworks in their own right
He did this most famously with 
his readymade, ‘Fountain’
perhaps one of the most controversial
 artworks in history.
Duchamp’s work is characterized by a 
taste for jokes, tongue-in-cheek wit,
and subversive humour, rife 
with sexual innuendoes.
His questioning attitude towards definitions
of identity and authorship is personified
by his alter ego, Rrose Sélavy.
In the mid-1930s Duchamp began to make miniature reproductions of all the work he made to that point
for 'La Boîte-en-Valise' 
- Box in a Suitcase.
Marcel Duchamp: I thought of 
the idea of a box
in which they would be mounted 
like in a small museum -
a portable museum, so to speak.
And there it is.
Narrator: This leather case contains 
sixty-nine miniature reproductions
including 'Fountain' and 
the portrait of Rrose Sélavy.
Duchamp made 24 versions of the case 
and each of these features a different
hand-coloured original fixed to the 
inside of the lid.
The box unpacks in such a way that some sections slide out, with other folders and black-mounted prints inside.
For Duchamp, there was no clear distinction 
between the original and the reproduction,
a concept cleverly 
embodied in this piece.
The case is also reminiscent 
of a travelling salesman's display case
containing a selection of Duchamp's 
work like a portable museum
made for his move to 
New York in the 1940s.
Duchamp’s influence has 
increased over time
and artists such as Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst and Sarah Lucas have been referred to as Duchampian.
He is also spoken of as being the 
godfather of conceptual art
with his focus the artists' idea 
over aesthetics and skill.
There's no doubting that Duchamp, 
in the age of the machine,
was, and still is, one of the 
world's most influential artists.
