Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle Whee

Marcel Duchamp's embrace of Dada may have stemmed from his frustrated experience of rejection from a Cubist show. Dadaism is akin to modern-day vandalism. Dada artists seek to dismantle the established world through various means, unafraid of ridicule. Duchamp wielded Dada as a weapon against the art establishment. "Bicycle Wheel" is one of his works challenging the traditional definition of art.

Duchamp used readymades to subvert the rules set by authorities - that artworks had to be crafted by the "hand of the artist." He wanted viewers to reconsider their established notions of what constitutes art. Given that everything is subject to change and can become obsolete, yesterday's avant-garde becomes today's obstacle for a new movement. It's absurd for artists to blindly adhere to rules; why not playfully challenge them by presenting remarkably unconventional objects to test the boundaries of art?

In this context, we move beyond considerations of academic art such as media, color, tone, lines, shapes, and composition. Duchamp pointedly addresses the question of the "hand of the artist." If readymades aren't considered art because they lack the "hand of the artist," what about "assisted readymades" assemblies, which involve the artist's skillful intervention?

The combination of a bicycle and a stool is whimsical. Duchamp may have selected these unrelated items by one of Dada’s principles - law of chance, but the wheel is meant to move and stools are supposed to sit still, is it an unintentional choice?