Duchamp, Pizza & News

Marcel Duchamp, The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even (The Green Box), 1934, flocked box containing
93 collotype reproductions on various papers

This Saturday, May 18, 2013 4pm

SPECIAL GUEST Michael Taylor, Director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College

Last chance to RSVP. (802) 767-9670

The Legacy of Marcel Duchamp

This gallery talk will explore the work and ideas of Marcel Duchamp and their impact on modern and contemporary art. Duchamp's Green Box notes and Rotoreliefs, from the collection of Hugh Townley, will provide the point of departure for a free-wheeling discussion about art, friendship, influence, and kinship.

This event is supported by BigTown Projects, the new nonprofit branch of BigTown Gallery whose mission is to be a cultural arts resource to the rural communities of Vermont and beyond.

Can't make the discussion?

There will be a video recording of the talk archived on our website following the event.

Dr. Michael R. Taylor studied at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on Marcel Duchamp's readymades, before joining the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where he was the Curator of Modern Art from 1997 to 2011. He has published widely on Duchamp, Dada, and Surrealism. In 2009 he was co-commissioner with Carlos Basualdo for the Bruce Nauman exhibition at the American Pavilion for the 53rd Venice Biennale that won the Golden Lion award for best national pavilion. In 2009 Dr. Taylor's book

Marcel Duchamp: Etant donnés received the George

Wittenborn Prize and was also awarded first prize for best museum permanent collection catalogue by the American Association of Art Museum Curators.

Continue the Conversation

We're firing up the pizza oven in honor of BigTown Project's inaugural BigTown Conversation.

Join us for delicious wood-fired pizza & beer and keep the conversation going! Let us know that you'll be joining us. (802) 767 9670

BigTown News

Hugh Townley, undated photo

In the summer of 1972, Robert Brown of the

Smithsonian Archives of American Art interviewed Hugh Townley for their Oral History Research Collection. At our request the Smithsonian has posted a transcription on their website.

It's a lively conversation, with Townley discussing his life, his work and a number of the artists (and pieces) in our current Masterworks exhibition. Names are phonetically transcribed so some details are incorrect (let us know if you spot something!) but we were struck by how much it brings Townley to life, and in the context of this exhibition. Once again the potency of these kinds of projects was confirmed and was certainly enjoyed by us.

You can read the full transcript here.

We are grateful to the Smithsonian for keeping treasures like this available to the public.

A little closer to home, we have our own oral history treasure, The Vermont Folk Life Center. Their current exhibition, Discovering Communities, showcases over 100 documentary media works produced in the last nine months by K-12 students and at-risk populations. These include films produced by kids attending the after-school program at Upper Valley Haven (a homeless shelter), a memoir writing project by young mothers at Addison County Parent/Child Center, a documentary project by high school students who traveled to Rwanda to record "Stories of Hope", and a film exchange linking Vermont students with young people in a small fishing village in Nicaragua.

Through June 8. For more information, contact the

VT Folk Life Center.