Starting a few weeks ago, the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome opened the greatly awaited exhibition dedicated to Marcel Duchamp, in the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary from his trip to Italy and the centenary from the birth of the famous “Bicycle Wheel”. 
The exhibition “Duchamp. Re-made in Italy”, curated by Stefano Cecchetto, Giovanna Coltelli, Marcella Cossu and Carla Subrizi, traces back the most important steps in the artistic production of the man who has changed the way we look at art forever, calling attention to the relationship he had with Italy and Italian artists (particularly, Gianfranco Baruchello who became one of his best friends). 
The transit of such a high-caliber artist had crucial consequences for Italian artists, who were strongly influenced by his very personal and genial ideas (including Enrico Baj, Luca Maria Patella and Sergio Dangelo): one section of the exhibition is indeed dedicated to Duchamp’s influences on Italian art of those years. The first room, dedicated to the artist’s private life and set up with photographs, documents and the famous chess which he often spent time with, is followed by a second room where “Boîte en valise” stands out: it is a suitcase containing a series of seventy reproductions of Duchamp’s most important works as a sort of “portable museum”, revolutionizing the traditional methodologies of the exhibition of art objects. 
A very strong point of the show is the room with a “theatrical” atmosphere and dedicated to ready-mades dating back to 1913 on (the already mentioned “Bicycle Wheel” was indeed the very first ready-made ever done); there are also ready-mades from art critic, collector, patron and Duchamp’s great friend Arturo Schwarz’s collection: starting from 1964 and with the artist’s authorization, he produced the replicas of Duchamp’s destroyed ready-mades; in 1997, Schwarz donated fourteen of these replicas to the National Gallery of Modern Art.
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