Explore the Other Interpretations of this artwork.
Various other interpretations have been made over the years by art historians regarding Boccioni’s intentions in creating the work. Donald Kuspit, Professor of Art and Philosophy, Ph.D, University of Michigan, theorizes that the sculpture’s rhythmic movement suggests a more sexual connotation that is “inherent rather than imposed.” He compares this sculpture to Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2” (1912) which symbolizes masturbation. Marjorie Perloff, author of “The Futurist Movement” (1986) states in her book that the sculpture does not represent one single bottle, but rather a series of bottle shaped shells, hollowed out and fit into each other. She refers to the sculpture’s base as a “concave shape with a simple unbroken profile,” a description that supports Boccioni’s theory of a center within the object itself. Conflicting with Boccioni’s concept of dynamism, Rosalind Krauss, author of Passages in Modern Sculpture (1981), describes the sculpture as a “symbol of invariance.” Krauss comments that “The sculpture dramatizes a conflict between the poverty of information contained in the single view of the object and the totality of the vision that is basic to any serious claim to know it.”
Futurist University of Michigan Duchamp’s sculpture Rosalind Krauss concave dynamism Marjorie Perloff Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 Donald Kuspit Sculpture