Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Moustaches and Mischief

I have written for the Art community before, and have also written about my disdain about the gatekeeping that exists in the world of art. It is something that put me off bothering with art for some time, much like opera and classical music. Fine art? I thought it wasn’t for a simple arsehole like me, Paul Stewart, from Glasgow. Turns out, I was wrong. Art is for everyone—so deal with it, art snobs.

For the second week of the year and second week of my year-long challenge, I wanted to discuss the place of art and satire in art. Specifically, in one of my favourite artists' work, Marcel Duchamp.

A Little About Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp was born in the French town of Blainville in 1887, and studied in art in Paris. Duchamp became famous as an artist, sculptor, writer and chess player and was associated with Dada, Cubism and conceptual art. Dada was born as an anti-war, anti-bourgeois movement, rejecting everything traditional art stood for. Its nonsensical, satirical style was a rebellion against elitism—a perfect antidote to gatekeeping in art. That spirit of irreverence is what drew me to Duchamp and his work.

Truthfully, I believe that is where my love for this style of art came from - it was an attack at the kind of art many people gatekeep and get snobby about.

Readymade Art

Duchamp invented what was known as Readymade art, which was pieces that consisted of objects, normally very mundane and ordinary, and removing their known function to elevate their status and transform them into works of art.

Imagine a men's urinal on its back, signed with a fake name and declared a work of art. That’s Fountain. Or how about an average snow shovel with the inscription In Advance of the Broken Arm. Duchamp even took a bicycle wheel and mounted it on a stool, then named the piece Bicycle Wheel.

He took mundane objects and reimagined them as art, because he decided they were art. And honestly? That's brilliant. I really appreciate the idea of taking something mundane and calling it art. It falls very much in line with my thoughts and philosophy on taste, attraction, enjoyment, and beauty. Duchamp turned run-of-the-mill objects into art simply because he declared them as such. Simple as that. Takes a lot of the mystery out of art.

Now, I am not going to dismiss classic artists who follow some semblance of standard practices and values. There are many traditional artists who I love, like Van Gogh and Di Vinci. However, I do like the idea of pushing against what is expected. I feel the same with music, film and my own craft, writing.

When you ignore the rules and create your own, something that people may feel excluded from enjoying, suddenly feels a lot more inclusive.

Duchamp’s genius wasn’t just declaring these objects as art—it was flipping the middle finger to the establishment that said art had to follow rules. He forced people to ask, ‘What even is art?’ And that’s the beauty of it—art can be whatever we want it to be.

So, for me Duchamp, along with many other artists like Lichtenstein, Koons, Dali, Pollock and even earlier artists like Picasso will always thrill me. Their work is typified by its lack of pomposity and elitist attitudes.

Rather than art feeling like this specialist craft and world that only certain people can get to play in, those artists showed you didn't need to stick to the rules. Anyone could be an artist. If you have an imagination, are not afraid to step outside the norm and are willing to learn your craft. Note, that I realise, that not everyone should or will be an artist, just that there is the potential there.

I Moustache You A Question About Art

Will doodled moustaches on works of art and photographs ever be unfunny? I don't think so.

The master, Duchamp, to be fair, didn't just moustache up any old picture - he took on the great and awe-inspiring Mona Lisa, or La Joconde as its known in French, or La Gioconda as its known in Italian and created many readymade art pieces parodying Da Vinci's masterpiece.

The main version was titled L.H.O.O.Q. and was in the form of an inexpensive postcard reproduction, which Duchamp adorned with a moustache and beard using pencil and altered the title.

As if it wasn't funny enough, the title is also a fine bit of satire. A gramogram, the letters, when pronounced in French sound like "Elle a chaud au cul" which is translated as "She has a hot ass" or "She is hot in the arse". There is a vulgar expression in French that this was a take on, "avoir chaud au cul", which implies a woman is sexually restless. Duchamp, in an interview, stated that a rough translation of the title was "There is a fire down below".

As if to suggest that the enigmatic and ambiguous smile was one of "sexual frustration".

Honestly, I always thought Lisa del Giocondo’s smile was her holding in a fart after hours of sitting for Leo. But who knows—maybe she was just aroused.

Duchamp’s artistic mischief teaches us that art isn’t about reverence or rules—it’s about what moves us, makes us think, or just makes us angry, sad or happy. Whether it’s urinals as fountains or doodled moustaches on masterpieces, Duchamp proved art is for everyone. And that’s why I’ll never stop laughing at doodled moustaches or glasses on masterpieces—it’s art, and it’s brilliant.

Just like Duchamp broke the rules of art, I’m breaking my own writing rules this year—one community every week, no gatekeeping allowed.

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Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: As many of you will know, one of my many goals for the year is to write specifically for each of the communities here on Vocal, alphabetically as they appear on the Communities page. Thanks to John Cox, I am now naming this challenge the ABCommunities Challenge, an update on the Community Challenge moniker that Rachel Deeming attributed to it. Because of humour. That means the communities I have and haven't written in.

Originally, I was going to just leave communities like Writers, Poets, Fiction, BookClub and Horror out, as I write regularly in them. However, I've changed my mind, as it is my right to do and instead, will just try and do something different for the communities I write in regularly. So, expect a romantic upbeat story when the week I am due to write in Fiction comes around and a sonnet or a poem that strictly follows the iambic pentameter, the week I am due to write in the Poets community. Plenty to look forward to or not. Who can say?

2/48

You can take a look at my first entry into this challenge for the 01 community, here:

Here are a couple of other things I've published recently: