Marcel Duchamp's 1917 Independent Artists Exhibition Installation Reexamined Ahead of MoMA Survey

In April 1917, the Society of Independent Artists held its First Annual Exhibition at New York's Grand Central Palace, featuring 2,400 works by 1,300 artists, including pieces by Pablo Picasso and a Titanic memorial. Marcel Duchamp, then America's most famous modern artist due to his scandalous 1913 'Nude Descending a Staircase,' served as chairman of the hanging committee, overseeing a peculiar installation approach. The exhibition included his readymade 'Fountain,' a urinal sculpture rejected from display but photographed by Alfred Stieglitz in front of a Marsden Hartley painting. This event, occurring in a 13-story neoclassical building opened in 1911 for trade fairs, is now being reconsidered as the Museum of Modern Art in New York opens a Marcel Duchamp survey on Sunday. Duchamp's readymades, such as a snow shovel and bicycle wheel, later influenced conceptual art. The Grand Central Palace, located north of Grand Central Terminal, has since disappeared, but its legacy connects to a current exhibition just blocks away.