"Bicycle Wheel" by Marcel Duchamp, 1951 | MoMA Education Video Lecture

- Hi, my name is Jackie Delamatre,
I'm a School Programs Educator
here at the Museum of Modern Art.
And this is Bicycle
Wheel by Marcel Duchamp.
It's a work that I think is really great
to talk to kids about what is art.
What makes something art.
When I bring kids into this room
what I'll do is I'll have them sit all
the way around the white platform here,
and then you know, I
will often start with,
actually with this piece
I really don't have to say anything.
(laughs)
That's when I kind of like,
that's my favorite kind of piece,
the piece where the
kids are the first ones
to say something.
So they say, "What?
"What is this?
"This isn't a painting,
"this isn't a sculpture, this is a wheel.
"What is this doing here?"
And I say, "Well, I don't know.
"Why do you think it's here?
"Why do you think it's taking up
"so much valuable space in
the Museum of Modern Art?"
One thing that I do a lot at this piece
is I tell them that Marcel Dechamp,
another one of his famous
pieces called Fountain,
was voted a few years back
by hundreds of art historians
to be the most influential piece
of modern art in existence.
And I actually show
them a picture of that,
of that piece, and of course,
they all really start
freaking out about that
because it's a urinal and you know,
some of them have to recognize
that's a urinal at first.
Often I do this with middle schoolers.
And so that really brings them into
well, okay here these
are similar in a way,
these are both objects that Marcel Duchamp
didn't actually create himself,
they're manufactured objects,
but not only does MoMA respect it,
but all these art historians respect it
and it's supposedly the
most influential piece,
so what is it that's doing this?
I think because of that compare contrast
they are able to start to get to the fact
that this is doing something different,
that this is Marcel Duchamp saying,
a lot of them say anything can be art
and then I try to push them
a little bit more on that.
Why can't I just declare any object art?
Why can't I say this
manufactured pencil is art?
And so we have to have a discuss
about well, what makes you
saying this pencil is art
different than Duchamp
saying this pencil is art?
And they are really
willing to engage with me
around the fact that
artists make a lot of art,
they make it their career,
they declare themselves artists.
And so they'll get a lot
of respect for the things
that they make in the context
of their whole life's work.