Prelude to a Broken Arm

Prelude to a Broken Arm

Artist	Marcel Duchamp
Year	1915
Type	ready-made
Location	Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, United States

Prelude to a Broken Arm (En prévision du bras cassé in French) is a 1915 sculpture by Dada artist Marcel Duchamp that consisted of a regular snow shovel with the title and "from Marcel Duchamp 1915" painted on the handle. An antidote to what he called "retinal art", this sculpture was the second of a series of sculptures that he called "ready-mades", the most famous of which is his 1917 Fontaine (Fountain). At the time, the term "ready-made" referred to manufactured goods as opposed to handmade goods, but Duchamp used the term to describe "an ordinary object elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist".^[1] The original was hung from a wire in the studio and has since been lost.^[2] It is believed that the shovel was mistaken for an ordinary snow shovel and was removed to move snow off the sidewalks of Chicago. A replica of the sculpture is on display at the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut.

References

1. "The Unfindable Readymade". Marcel Duchamp Studies Online Journal. Retrieved 2014-07-31.
2. Shearer, Rhonda Roland (1997). "Impossible Bed". Art & Academe. 10 (1): 26–62.

External links

• Museum of Modern Art, New York City, In Advance of the Broken Arm