Its first volume appeared on the eve of the opening of the recently formed Society of Independent Artist’s inaugural, non-juried exhibition, with Henri Pierre Roché declaring in its opening article: “ The Blind Man celebrates today the birth of the Independence of Art in America.” The organization emulated the French Société des artistes indépendants and sought to encourage the development of avant-garde art in the United States. The Blind Man proved extremely important, disseminating both the voices and the artwork of international avant-garde artists active in New York. While the association of a sightless individual with the title for visual arts magazine-a connection played up by the caricaturist Al Frueh in the drawing used on the first issue’s cover-was typically “Dada” in its seeming unsuitability, the title both raised the question of just who might be considered “blind,” as well as the privileged perception of a “second sight” that renders apparent truths obfuscated by the distractions of the physical world. In many ways, The Blind Man exemplified the spirit of “Dadaism.” The Dada movement, which roared into being in Europe and the United States immediately following the outbreak of World War I, boldly questioned the legitimacy of traditional political hierarchies by undermining traditional aesthetic categories of taste with seemingly “absurd” artistic gestures. Thanks to a generous loan both issues of this short-lived publication will be included through early September. Inspired by these avant-garde journals, perhaps no other “little magazine” of the era had such long reach of The Blind Man, an experimental review launched in 1917 by Marcel Duchamp, Henri Pierre Roché, and Beatrice Wood.
Examples of each of these publications are now on view. Alfred Stieglitz played a leading role as editor and publisher of Camera Work and was the inspiration behind the pioneering 291, co-published by Stieglitz, Marius de Zayas, Paul Haviland, and Agnes Meyer. Somewhat less celebrated has been the advent of publications about such experimentation. Artists developed ground-breaking modes of expression, including cubism and abstraction, and the photograph came into its own as a mode of aesthetic expression. This period was characterized in the West by the rapid transformative influence of new technologies such as wide-spread electrification, the telephone, X-ray, and industrialization.
1917 Duchamp submits Fountain to the Society of Independent Artists.With the opening of Emerging Modernisms: American and European Art, 1900-1950 (J–January 5, 2020) comes an opportunity to explore the emergence of new artistic idioms during the first half of the twentieth century.1916 The Dada movement begins in the Cabaret Voltaire, Zurich.Duchamp conceives the idea of the "readymade", although he has accumulated several such objects previously. In the autumn, Duchamp meets Man Ray (1890-1976), who also becomes a member of the Arensberg circle. They meet Walter and Louise Arensberg, who become Duchamp's main patrons. 1915 Picabia and, independently, Duchamp arrive in New York.1913 Picabia travels to New York for the Armory Show of contemporary art, where Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase is the most controversial exhibit.1912 Duchamp is asked to withdraw his painting, Nude Descending a Staircase, from the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, causing him to become disenchanted with artistic groups.As Duchamp remembered, "Our friendship began right there." Picabia's wife Gabrielle later described how the two men "emulated one another in their extraordinary adherence to paradoxical, destructive principles, in their blasphemies and inhumanities which were directed not only against the old myths of art, but against all the foundations of life in general." 1911 Duchamp meets Francis Picabia (1879-1953) at the Salon d'Automne in Paris.