[Opening] FRENCH WINDOW

The Mori Art Museum presents "French Window: Looking at Contemporary Art through the Marcel Duchamp Prize" from Saturday, 26 March to Sunday, 28 August, 2011 in celebration of (or to commemorate) the 10th anniversary of the Marcel Duchamp Prize, hosted by ADIAF, a group of French collectors.

More than 10 works created by Marcel Duchamp are exhibited. The works of 27 artists including the works of ten winners of the prize are presented. The interior of an appartement of an art collector in Paris is reproduced in the museum. An art work as large as 9 meters in length has gone out of the museum exhibition space and been placed in the public space at Roppongi Hills.

This exhibition introduces the work of contemporary artists who have won or been finalists for the prize and also the work of Duchamp himself. 28 artists are included in total. The exhibition - the title of which refers to the pun in the name of Duchamp's well known work Fresh Widow - includes five sections: "Duchamp's Window," "The View from the Window," "The Window of Time and Space," "The Window of the Inner World" and "Inside the Window."

The first section includes important examples of Duchamp's "readymades," while the next three sections showcase the essence of French contemporary art through a selection of paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations and videos made by the artists of diverse ages and cultural backgrounds who have achieved success in the Marcel Duchamp Prize's 10-year history. The fifth and final section includes a full-scale recreation of a typical French collector's apartment, complete with artworks.

Confronted with the artists' diverse forms of expression - each dealing in original ways with such themes as everyday life, time and generic urban landscapes - the audience has the chance to feel directly the atmosphere of the French artistic scene, and to know even more about the fascinating historical, social and cultural contexts out of which the works have emerged. In the "age of the collector" or "the age of living together," this exhibition also represents a chance to think deeply on the potential for collaboration in Japan between the public sector – public museums and organizations – and the private sector – collectors and also private museums.

The Marcel Duchamp Prize is held in honor of the great 20th century French artist, known as the pioneer of comtemporary art, as a way of supporting and promoting artists who lead the French contemporary scene, working in the field of the plastic and visual arts: installation, video, painting, photography and sculpture. The prize, which is opened to French artists and artists living in France, was established in 2000 by the ADIAF. It is organized in partnership with the Centre Pompidou and the FIAC (International Contemporary Art Fair). Over the last ten years, the distinguished Marcel Duchamp Prize has become one of the most renowned international awards.