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L.H.O.O.Q., readymade
Marcel Duchamp
1919
Pencil on a reproduction of Mona Lisa, 19.7 x 12.4 cm
Original: New York, Mary Sisler Collection
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| | | In the year 1919 on the 400th anniversary of Leonardo’s death, Duchamp took a reproduction of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa added in pencil a moustache and gave it the title pronounced in French: Elle a chaud au cul (She has a hot arse).
…In reference to the Mona Lisa I also added a sentence or initials on the bottom of that reproduction - L.H.O.O.Q. A loose translation of them would be ‘there is fire down below. (Artur Schwartz, The Complete work of Marcel Duchamp, Thames & Hudson, pp. 476-77)
Duchamp said that by drawing moustache and beard to Mona Lisa, she became a man:
The curious thing about that moustache and goatee is that when you look at it the Mona Lisa becomes a man. It is not a woman disguised as a man, it is a real man, and that was my discovery without realizing it at that time.
(Artur Schwartz, The Complete work of Marcel Duchamp, Thames & Hudson, pp. 476-477)
Marchel Duchamp later wrote that the only reason he draw her moustache was to desacralize her. But maybe Duchamp didn't tell us everything and he revealed only the first layer of the image. Rhonda Roland Shearer, a New York sculptor thinks that L.H.O.O.Q. is Duchamp's self portrait. She thought that original was a lithography made by a superimposition of Mona Lisa and Duchamp's portrait. |
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 "L.H.O.O.Q., readymade")