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The Year in Art

It was a year of gigantism: A huge show of Dada. Norman Foster’s diamond-faceted 46-story tower. A $135 million Klimt. The Lower East Side galleries kept gaining stature. And the Morgan Library bulked up without sacrificing its charm.


Otto Dix's Skat Players (Die Skatspieler), 1920.   
(Photo: Courtesy MoMA)

10. “Dada,” at MoMA
Marcel Duchamp probably influences more artists (whether they know it or not) than Jackson Pollock does. Even so, Dada remains the least popular modern movement among the general public. That paradox made “Dada” at the Museum of Modern Art unusually enlightening. The show both told the historical story of Dada and held up a telling, sometimes cruel mirror to the practice of art today. Is there a better critique to be found—of the worlds of celebrity, money, gender, and art itself—than Duchamp’s mustachioed Mona Lisa? Or a more fly-opening surprise than his urinal?

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    • 2006 Culture Awards

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