A new retrospective at Kunsthaus Zurich, soon traveling to Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, is dedicated to Suzanne Duchamp (1889–1963), the often-overlooked sister of Marcel Duchamp. The exhibition highlights her individual contributions to Cubism and Dada, featuring works like "Radiation of Two Solitary Separates Apart" (1916–20) that use blingy materials such as gold paint, silver tinfoil, and glass beads. It also includes her painting "Marcel's Unhappy Readymade" (1920), a response to her brother's conceptual piece, and a new catalog commission by painter Amy Sillman.
The show matters because it continues a vital trend of monographic exhibitions focused on underrepresented female artists, giving Suzanne Duchamp her own narrative separate from her famous brothers. By reexamining her Dada-era paintings and mixed-media works, the retrospective challenges art-historical hierarchies and underscores how she used subjective, humanist themes—love, joy, glory—within the avant-garde's industrial and absurdist frameworks, asserting her distinct voice in early 20th-century art.