Monogramista T. D.: Duchampion
In 2018 the House of Arts Brno, in collaboration with the prominent Slovak conceptual artist, Monogramist T. D., implemented his unrealised proposal for an intervention in nature from 1987 entitled Duchampion. The execution of the work took place on the occasion of organising the artist’s exhibition Migrant at the Jaroslav Král Gallery in the House of Arts.
The artistic realisation Duchampion, which has become a permanent component of the public space in the park at the House of Arts, was created following the artist’s original design by combining two objects: the self-produced and borrowed ready made by Marcel Duchamp Bottle Dryer (Bottle Rack) and a newly-planted tree, inserted in its centre. Duchamp’s object, whose status as a work of art was established only after its transposition in a gallery context, was carried out of the gallery, into nature. It remains a distinct work of art/object, but its context and role have changed. The rack supports the tree, protects it from damage and becomes its conservationist. The artist has been continuously concerned with the subject of nature conservation since the 1970s, when he created several conceptual, land art and performative actions highlighting the urgency of environmental issues. The environmental subject matter which resonated with the Czechoslovak and international artistic milieu in the 1970s with its critical social appeal is today updated as one of the most pressing problems of the contemporary world in the political, social and artistic context.
Duchampion, a work difficult to classify by standard art history categories, is primarily an artistic gesture by Monogramist T. D., who playfully recontextualises the art object and creates new meaningful and poetic connotations. On the level of intellectual reflection, it poses questions about the nature of authorship and the status of a work of art, as well as the dialectical relationship between art and nature. The wordplay in the title of the work, combining in a Duchampian manner the words Duchamp and champion refers to the relationship between the two protagonists of the artwork and asks: What exactly is the artwork, where does the work begin, who is the author and who is the champion? As in the title, so in reality the meaning of the work is materialised in their combination and embrace. Art and nature meet in close connection, in a permanent union. The theme of Duchampion can be perceived through its performative nature as a perpetually changing event. The processual character of the realisation is related to the act of planting the tree and the ready made object and the unfinished cycle of the tree’s metamorphosis during the seasons, its growth, ageing, just like the rusting of the object.
Slovak conceptual artist and university teacher Dezider Tóth (b. 1947) has been performing since 1997 under the pseudonym Monogramist T. D. Between 1991 and 2015 he worked at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava, in 2002 he was appointed professor of intermedia art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. Since 2013 he has been living and working in Brno.
text: Marika Svobodová, 2022