Hahaha. The Humor of Art  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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Illustration: Mona Lisa Smoking a Pipe by Eugène Bataille

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Hahaha. The Humor of Art (15 September 2021 - 16 January 2022) was an exhibition organised by ING and KANAL - Centre Pompidou held at the ING Art Center in Brussels, curated by Aurélie Verdier and Nicolas Liucci-Goutnikov. On the exhibition poster was Duchamp's Fountain.

Blurb:

This exposition reveals the role of humor in artistic revolutions from the end of the 19th century to the present day. From the Great Zwanz Exhibition (1885) to Dadaism, from ‘Lolo’ the donkey to Marcel Duchamp’s readymade, from Man Ray to Marcel Broodthaers, from John Baldessari’s songs to Wim Delvoye’s performance art, Hahaha takes humor seriously!

The exhibition will show a series of quite remarkable works including the iconic Fountain, Marcel Duchamp’s inverted urinal. This bold joke revolutionised the art world in 1917 when it was presented at the New York Society of Independent Artists Salon to test the self-proclaimed open-mindedness of its jury. Fountain was refused but it would play a major role in the history of 20th century art. Duchamp is without a doubt the first artist to elevate the prank into a full artistic concept, followed by Piero Manzoni and his Artist's Shit or the pranks by Bertrand Lavier, Maurizio Cattelan and Wim Delvoye.

Over 200 works divided into seven themes: caricatures, the pun, artwork as toys, hoaxes, the parody, mockery, and master buffoons.

“Humor and art share a vivid language with a great asset: openness towards others, one of the major values upheld by ING. Belgium has always had a strong tradition of humor and mockery, with many disruptive artists such as René Magritte, Jacques Charlier and Marcel Mariën. This is why, in addition to the works from the Centre Pompidou collections which make up the majority of the exhibition, we have also included works by essential Belgian artists and collaborated with some of them, for example Guillaume Bijl and Wim Delvoye.”

--Anne Petre, Manager Art at ING Belgium

Blurb from the catalog

"From the caricatures of Honoré Daumier, to the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp, the puns of the Dadas, the videos of Dalí, to the works of John Baldessari and Marcel Broodthaers, humour has been a powerful tool in art, especially to be critical of itself. This catalogue will explore the humour of art through its different variations: toys and games, hoaxes, puns, jesters... A humorous essay by curator Nicolas Liucci- Gutnikov introduces the subject. An anthology of philosophical and historical texts puts humour as a tool of criticism in context, from Pascal, Montaigne, to Baudelaire and Nietzsche... Finally, some humorous quotes Dada and surrealist artists and writers punctuate the book."

See also

• Ara, Méhara, Boukhara by Raymond Hains
• Leonid Sokov
• Joachim-Raphaël Boronali
• None of the Buildings on Sunset Strip (2002)
• A Flux Suicide Kit ()
• Birdcalls (Louise Lawler)
• Blue bar - Valérie Mréjen
• Cloaca Maxima by Ernest T
• La Sainte Vierge by Picabia[1] (La Sainte Vierge (The Blessed Virgin), 1920, ink and graphite on paper, 33 x 24 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris)
• William Wegman, Getting Into ArtForum, 1970.
• René Magritte, Le Bon Exemple, 1953.
• George Brecht, The Bottle Bottle-Opener, 1966.