Eine Unternehmenssammlung als Readymade?

Bethan Huws’ kuratorische Intervention in der Daimler Art Collection Berlin, 2016

Abstract

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Duchamp’s readymade, Bethan Huws conceived the exhibition On the Subject of Ready- Made or Using a Rembrandt as an Ironing Board on behalf of Daimler Contemporary Berlin. Starting by addressing the constellation of power implicit in the invitation to position herself at meta-level of the curator, the essay is devoted to a close reading of Huws’s strategies of appropriation in response to this institutional framework. Huws rejected the suggestion originally put forward by curator Renate Wiehager of depicting the reception history of the readymade concept by using examples from the corporate collection, together with one of Huws’s works to illustrate the continuance of this artistic direction. She did, however, seize upon the idea of genealogical descendancy in regard to Duchamp’s concept of the readymade. But instead of reaffirming this principle, this article argues that Huws appropriated the exhibition format and – by reactivating Duchamp’s idea of the Readymade réciproque – converted it into an artistic form.