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# Robber Barons, Marcel Duchamp, and Big Museums’ Dirty Little Secrets
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/eunsong-kim-robber-barons-marcel-duchamp-and-big-museums-dirty-little-secrets/
- Published: 2024-11-19T22:30:04.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:12:15.000Z
- Description: Hrag Vartanian and author Eunsong Kim discuss the hidden power imbalances behind some of the most prominent pieces of 20th-century conceptual art.
- Author: Hyperallergic
- Tags: Podcast, conceptual art, Marcel Duchamp, #wp, #wp-post, #image-position-large, #Import 2025-11-24 09:36 (2023, 2024, part 2)

In 1915, Marcel Duchamp bought a snow shovel at a hardware store in New York City. He inscribed his signature and the date on its wooden handle. Tonight, the [fourth](https://www.moma.org/collection/works/105050?ref=hyperallergic.com) version of this classic “ready-made,” which he titled “In Advance of the Broken Arm,” will be auctioned off at Christie’s during their [20th Century Evening Sale](https://www.christies.com/en/auction/20th-century-evening-sale-23141-nyr?ref=hyperallergic.com). It’s estimated to sell for $2 million to $3 million.

How could a simple snow shovel be valued at such a steep price? Was Duchamp an unmatched genius, or a product of some of the biggest museums’ dirtiest little secrets: the results of pure, unadulterated capitalism? 

Northeastern University professor, essayist, poet, and editor Eunsong Kim has illuminated the underlying influences of industrial capitalism and racism behind some of the most prized museum collections in her new book, [*The Politics of Collecting: Race and the Aestheticization of Property*](https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-politics-of-collecting?ref=hyperallergic.com). She traces how Duchamp was brought to prominence through the patronage of collectors Louise and Walter [Arensberg](https://blog.philamuseum.org/a-portal-into-marcel-duchamp/?ref=hyperallergic.com), heirs of a fortune wrought by the steel industry. Their family operated steel mills in the same setting as titans such as Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, whose wealth also underlies their own valuable art collections. 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/11/carnegie-illinois_steel_furnaces.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/11/walter-and-louise-arensberg-with-marcel-duchamp.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/11/img_9816-3-1-1.png)

Left: Photograph by Alfred T. Palmer of Carnegie Steel Furnaces in 1941 (image via Wikimedia Commons); Center: Photo by Beatrice Wood of Louise Arensberg, Walter Arensberg, and Marcel Duchamp in the garden at 7065 Hillside Avenue, Los Angeles, in August 1936 (image courtesy Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts); Right: Marcel Duchamp, “Bicycle Wheel” (1964; replica of 1913 original) (photo Isabella Segalovich/Hyperallergic)

And as it turns out, the “death of the author,” celebrated in conceptual art like that of Duchamp, is a convenient idea for the ultrawealthy. Devaluing labor pairs well with violent crackdowns on striking workers to deny them adequate pay. Or even Frederick Winslow Taylor's development of “[scientific management](https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/caitlin-c-rosenthal-accounting-slavery-excerpt/?ref=hyperallergic.com),” a system that is still [cited today](https://www.villanovau.com/articles/leadership/scientific-management-theory-explained/?ref=hyperallergic.com) but is based on the [idealization of the slave plantation](https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674241657?ref=hyperallergic.com). 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2024/11/politics-of-collecting-cover.webp)

How much of the Modernist archive was canonized by union-busting bosses? How much of conceptual art in the 20th and 21st centuries has been buoyed by the reverence of scientific management? In this episode, Editor-in-chief Hrag Vartanian sits down to talk with Kim about her new volume, which challenges generations of unquestioned received knowledge and advocates for a new vision of art beyond cultural institutions. In the process, they discuss the craft of writing, how a White artist was counted as a Black artist [at the 2014 Whitney Biennial](https://thenewinquiry.com/the-whitney-biennial-for-angry-women/?ref=hyperallergic.com), and how Marcel Duchamp got away with selling bags of air. 

Subscribe to *Hyperallergic* on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hyperallergic/id1112233641?mt=2&ref=hyperallergic.com) and [anywhere else](https://podcast.hyperallergic.com/?ref=hyperallergic.com) you listen to podcasts. Watch the complete video of the conversation with images of the artworks on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP6p8VcL4BE&ref=hyperallergic.com).