If we must point out an artist that revolutionised the art world of the 20th century that is Marcel Duchamp (France, 1887-1968), an avant-gardist that still influences contemporary art. In 1913 he creates Bicycle Wheel (a bicycle wheel attached to a wooden stool), defined, in his own words, as "something we have at home, as a sharpener, but completely useless". This anticipated his future challenges: taking ordinary everyday objects to transform them into artworks for the simple fact of being signed by an artist.

The Gagosian Gallery in New York is now exhibiting some of those objects (readymades), which Duchamp supplanted during 50 years, because many of the first versions were lost or destroyed.

General view "Marcel Duchamp"

Gagosian Gallery, New York, August 2014

Till 1956 Argentina had no artist similar to Marcel Duchamp to have produce such a revolution in the art-world, nor to create the notion of "anti-art". In Buenos Aires, this begins with informalism, which would start a chain reaction: Alberto Greco's action art, Kenneth Kemble's destructive art and the new figurative art by Luis Felipe Noé, Jorge De la Vega and Ernesto Deira.

Source: "Textos razonados del MNBA", by Mercedes Casanegra.