“Like many artists, I make art from the stuff of everyday life: clothing, cash, stolen items, porn. The work takes the form of sculpture, installation, digital media, text-based work, and applied arts. It is frequently derived from conceptual ideas that deconstruct hierarchical systems “high art” versus “low art,” “intrinsic value” versus “commercial value." My work for this show is based on Marcel Duchamp's iconic Readymade, Bottle Rack or Egouttoir The bottle rack is three times the originals' size and it's been combined with a silhouette of the artist himself. The work, Je Me Degoute De L'Egouttoir, (I'm Sick of the Bottlerack) both honors and pokes fun of the master, and acts as a sculptural portrait of Duchamp that conflates his two most important works.” Ray Beldner
“Avec Ma Langue Dans Ma Joue (With My Language in My Game), part of a larger series based on Duchamp’s small sculptural pieces, was inspired by Duchamp’s With My Tongue in My Cheek (1959), which combines a plaster cast of Duchamp’s cheek with a pencil-drawn sketch of his profile. Here Beldner has substituted his own image. The plaster cast of his cheek is flocked with ground money dust, with the result that the work, as Beldner jokes, looks like a “moldy” version of the original. The use of money dust references Duchamp’s ambivalent relationship to the art market. Beldner’s translation of Duchamp’s English title plays on the multiple meanings of the French words langue and joue, paying tribute to Duchamp’s love of manipulating language.” National Portrait Gallery