Inspirational Herne Bay

Marcel Duchamp having a bit of a think

How Herne Bay reinvigorated a famous French artist

When influential French artist Marcel Duchamp arrived in Herne Bay, he was considering giving up art, but after four weeks in the town he returned to Europe full of new ideas.

His time in Herne Bay will be celebrated with a three-week festival starting at the end of July, featuring exhibitions, talks, and a schools programme in which Bay youngsters produce their own works of art to display. Organiser Sue Austen said:

"Marcel Duchamp has been voted the most influential artist of the 21st century but when he arrived in Herne Bay at the beginning of August 1913 he was just 26 and deeply depressed by the reception his last major painting, Nude Descending a Staircase, had received at the Armory Show in New York.

He was here to chaperone his sister Yvonne who was studying English at Lynton College. He contemplated giving up art forever, but after four short weeks Duchamp returned to Europe, refreshed and intellectually invigorated. Later that year he produced the first kinetic sculpture, Bicycle Wheel, published his ideas on objets trouvés and created the totally unique Three Standard Stoppages.

The art world reeled from his new ideas – our town often has this effect on people."

Sue, who together with Jason Hollingsworth make up the BayGuide team behind the festival, said the aim was to show that Herne Bay was still a special place.

An exhibition of work by invited local artists will be curated by David Cross and staged at Beach House, the Bay Art Gallery and the King's Hall, along with outdoor exhibitions and pop-up galleries.

There will also be a talk by Mike Bundock of Herne Bay Historical Records Society on what the town was like at the time, a sculpture trail curated by Karen Simpson and a symposium at the King's Hall curated by Duchamp expert Francis M Naumann.

For more information visit iamnotdead.co.uk or their Facebook site. The team will also tweet from @Duchamp_HB