Duchamp and conceptual art: the joke that went too far or the birth of modern art?
Festival of Ideas
Saturday 15 September 2018 1.30 - 2.30pm
The Benjamin West Lecture Theatre, Burlington Gardens, Royal Academy of Arts
£16, £10 concessions
Join The Man Booker Prize-winning novelist Howard Jacobson and award-winning Sunday Times art critic Waldemar Januszczak as they discuss Marcel Duchamp’s contested legacy.
Jacobson and Januszczak both feel passionately about Duchamp and conceptual art. For Jacobson, Duchamp’s work was the death knell for creativity but Januszczak believes that the artist behind the infamous Fountain was the godfather of contemporary art.
Howard Jacobson is an award-winning writer and broadcaster. His novels include The Mighty Waltzer (1999); The Man Booker Prize-winning The Finkler Question (2010); J (2014) and, most recently, Pussy (2017). For 18 years he was a regular columnist for the Independent, where he wrote about everything from art to religious sermons. He has presented programmes on the Turner Prize, 19th-century painting, depictions of Judas and Shylock and contributes regularly to Radio 4's A Point of View.
Award-winning Sunday Times art critic and broadcaster, Waldemar Januszczak has been the art critic at The Sunday Times since 1992 and has twice won Critic of the Year. Since 1997 he has produced and presented television documentaries on art including ones on the Renaissance; the Impressionists and Baroque art. Most recently he has produced a series on American art.
Join them as they battle it out for Duchamp’s contested legacy and debate whether conceptual art is the joke that went too far.
This discussion will be chaired by the Royal Academy’s Artistic Director Tim Marlow.
This talk will be accompanied with speech-to-text transcription by STAGETEXT and BSL (British Sign Language) interpretation.
Book signing after the event
Howard Jacobson will be signing books in the Burlington Gardens Wohl Entrance Hall, outside Pace Gallery, from 2.30–3.15pm on the day of the event, Saturday 15 September. Free, no need to book.
30 seconds with Waldemar Januszczak
What's the best thing you've seen this year?
The reredos from the monastery of San Benito by Alonso Berruguette, which is on show at the Spanish National Museum of Sculpture in Valladolid. Astounding Spanish Renaissance art.
Who has inspired you?
Sir John Richardson, Picasso's biographer, because he writes about art the way art should be written about. With knowledge and understanding, rather than positions learnt from evening class politics.
What advice would you give someone starting out in your field?
Write. And keep writing. In the end, the important difference is between those who talk about doing it, and those who do it.
What do you need for creativity to flourish?
Determination. That's it. If you're determined enough, you'll do it.
DJ performance: Hannah Faith
Free
Every Friday and Saturday evening throughout our Festival of Ideas we’ve invited some of our favourite DJs to takeover the Royal Academy, performing eclectic sets of dance, house, disco and electronica in Burlington Gardens' Wohl Entrance Hall.
South London based DJ and sound curator Hannah Faith is deeply influenced by her travels throughout the globe, reflected in her electric soul, jazz-funk and afro-house infused sets. She’s performed numerous Boiler Room sets, featured on Gilles Peterson’s radio station Worldwide FM, and now regularly hosts shows on Rinse FM and NTS.