“With Duchamp, there’s no choice but to penetrate about two inches behind the eyeballs into the brain.” -Francis Nauman quoted in a recent Wall Street Journal article on Duchamp

This week I have been working on art inspired by Marcel Duchamp for a show this October at the Slaughterhouse Space in Healdsburg, CA. The curator, Hanna Regev, drew her exhibition concept from the location of the Slaughterhouse Space which is surrounded by the vineyards of the Duchamp Winery. Owned by artist Pat Lenz and her husband, the winery includes several of Pat’s outdoor fiberglass sculptures – including this one pictured here of Marcel Duchamp with a trellis of roses growing from his enormous head – alluding to his pseudonym Rrose Selavy.

It is fitting that Pat chose to depict his head so large – over nine feet tall. Marcel Duchamp has always struck me as being very dry, witty, and conceptual. Like the quote above describes, his best art makes you think. And so I have been thinking a lot about how to fuse his sensibility with my own and create something new. Below is a photo of some things in process – I will share more as the work evolves.