Part Object Part Sculpture, Columbus, Ohio

At Columbus, Ohio’s Wexner Center for the Arts, Part Object Part Sculpture, organized by curator Helen Molesworth, presented a compelling rethinking of post-World War II sculpture that highlighted the work of Duchamp’s Conceptualism in the art historical canon. By making room for Duchamp and Conceptualism, Molesworth also ties in the history of generative art with Duchamp as a common ancestor of electronic sculpture, randomness in art, the material-generative, minimalism, cybernetic (feedback loops in art) and more. Focusing on the tactile and artisanal aspects of Marcel Duchamp’s later works, the show reevaluated the notion of the “Duchampian” beyond the ready-made, emphasizing the handcrafted, erotic and absurd elements. Molesworth positioned artists like Louise Bourgeois, Yayoi Kusama, and Eva Hesse not as peripheral figures but as central to a new narrative that highlighted materiality, memory and form over institutional critique.