The Bride and the Bachelors

Interesting exhibition at the Barbican focusing on “The Bride and the Bachelors” by Duchamp and the influence it had on the cultural in New York at the time including John Cage, Merce Cunningham and Jasper Johns.

I must admit on the ground floor and I had a “Pull the other one” moment. I am not sure I really understood the central work. It was an abstract work painted on glass.

The whole display was by Phillipe Parreno and called Mise en Scene and provided a sound track to the exhibition. Again I found some of the music quite trying but I did love the occasional sound of dancers running across the floor.

However by the time I got upstairs I was starting to get a view of a group of friends. I’m not sure I liked much of the art but I did like the sense of friendship and their work becoming a dialogue between them. The artist I most warmed to was Jasper John’s because his work seemed to have more of a sense of humour such as the lovely zig zag abstract works with cutlery stuck round the edge!

I would like to have seen more sense of the dance element of this. If you go certain evenings there is dance being staged but if you miss that everything seems a bit static. It might have been nice to have some videos of the dance running.

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