Barbican Art Gallery presents The Bride and the Bachelors Duchamp with Cage, Cunningham, Rauschenberg and Johns on view 14 February – 9 June 2013.
Examining one of the most important chapters in the history of contemporary art, The Bride and the Bachelors is the first exhibition to explore Marcel Duchamp’s (1887–1968) impact on four great modern artists – composer John Cage (1912–1992); dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham (1919–2009) and visual artists Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) and Jasper Johns (born 1930). Tracing their creative exchanges and collaborations the exhibition features twenty-five works by Duchamp, and more than thirty by Johns and Rauschenberg, as well as music by Cage and live dance performances of Cunningham choreography. The Bride and the Bachelors: Duchamp with Cage, Cunningham, Rauschenberg and Johns is organised by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in association with Barbican Art Gallery.
The exhibition is curated by Carlos Basualdo in collaboration with Erica F. Battle. International contemporary artist Philippe Parreno has devised the exhibition’s mise en scène, activating time and movement within the exhibition to create a vital way of experiencing the work of the five featured artists – invoking the notion of the ghost, existing between presence and absence. The varied sequence of Parreno’s subtle orchestration of live and pre-recorded sound, arranged in concert with live dance performances, enables the exhibition to change over time. www.barbican.org.uk