Marcel Duchamp Thinking 思考するマルセル・デュシャン

In 1964, the year the Tokyo Olympic Games was held, Robert Rauschenberg, the leading figure in contemporary American art, visited Japan. Shinohara, who was aged 32 at the time, went to the American artist's open conference, and climbed onto the stage proudly carrying along his handmade papier‐mâché figure titled "Marcel Duchamp." The figure was later thrown into a ditch, but its blueprint has survived in this picture. It holds in his left hand a portrait of Marcel Duchamp, the originator of Dadaism, and in the right, a Coca Cola bottle which symbolizes the American consumer culture. The figure is specified to be as tall as two meters, and the head is to be rotated by a motor.
Shinohara was a core member of the "Neo-Dadaism Organizers" who sought ever newer expressions in rebellion to conventional art, and was one of those new type of artists who attracted public attention with their weird behavior. In his case it was his Mohegan cut hair which he flaunted on the mass media. This figure was significant both as a passionate homage to Duchamp who never allowed himself to stop changing, and as a visible challenge to Rauschenberg the internationally renowned master from an artist who considered himself to be a Japanese hero.