Marcel Duchamp & Sturtevant: Dialogues are mostly fried snowballs

“Dialogues are mostly fried snowballs” presents an exchange between Marcel Duchamp and Sturtevant, curated as a dialogue between two key figures in the development of conceptual practices. Duchamp, described by Willem de Kooning as a “one-man movement”, introduces the readymade, elevating everyday objects to artworks through selection and context, and challenging retinal art.

Sturtevant extends this shift from image to concept through her repetitions, produced from memory, of works by contemporaries. Over four decades, she adopts Duchamp’s visual language to examine the underlying structures of his practice, including processes of production, reception, and canonisation.

The exhibition takes its title from one of Sturtevant’s statements, echoing Duchamp’s use of wit. It brings together works ranging from Duchamp’s early readymade “Porte-bouteilles” (1914/64) to both artists’ explorations of erotic forms, as well as Sturtevant’s reiterations of “Fountain” (1917). This first exhibition dedicated to both artists considers the relevance of their practices in relation to digital reproduction and contemporary modes of replication.