Tomáš Pospiszyl

Marcel Duchamp in Zlatá Praha

This article examines the unexpected appearance of reproductions of works by Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia in the Czech illustrated magazine Zlatá Praha in April 1913, that is, within a milieu not oriented toward avant-garde art. The study traces how these works entered the broader Czech media sphere and what kind of response they elicited in the contemporary press. It demonstrates that their publication was connected to current European debates on modern art, particularly the controversies surrounding the 1912 Salon d’Automne in Paris, and subsequently also to the media reception of the Armory Show in the United States. Outside specialist artistic circles, the avant-garde was often presented as a curiosity, an object of humor, or a source of incomprehension. The reproductions of Duchamp and Picabia in Zlatá Praha appeared within a context of conservative visual content and were accompanied by ironic commentary, reflecting the reserved attitude of the editors and a section of the public. At the same time, these reproductions provoked secondary responses in other Czech periodicals, thereby bringing avant-garde art, albeit briefly, to a broader Czech audience across various social strata. The text further situates this phenomenon within the wider framework of the reception of modern art: mass media played an important yet ambivalent role, enabling the rapid dissemination of new visual forms while often reducing them to something entertaining or incomprehensible. The study thus contributes to an understanding of how the avant-garde in the early 20th century was established not only through scholarly discourse, but also through the medium of the popular press.

Author's email:

tomas.pospiszyl@avu.cz

DOI: HTTPS://DOI.ORG/10.54759/ART-2026-0105



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