Description
ISBN: 9780691274485
Format: Trade binding
Year: 2026
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Description:
A collection of provocative quotations from one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century.
Duchamp-isms is a selection of illuminating quotations from Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), one of the most important figures in the history of modern art. A painter, sculptor, writer, and chess player, Duchamp changed the very definition of art with his 'readymades' everyday objects such as a bicycle wheel or bottle rack that he titled, signed, and presented as art. He provoked critics and the public with works such as the Cubist-Futurist painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (1912) and Fountain (1917), a readymade composed of a men's urinal signed 'R. Mutt'. Prizing the intellectual over the aesthetic, Duchamp inspired later movements like Minimalism, Conceptualism, and Pop Art. Delightful and witty, Duchamp-isms offers rich insights into the mind of a true icon of modern art.
The quotes in Duchamp-isms, drawn primarily from interviews, have been selected and introduced by Francis Naumann, a leading authority on Duchamp, and organised in eight thematic sections: philosophies of art; painting; Dada and Surrealism; the readymades; chess; literary influences; commercialism in art; and philosophies of life and death. The book also features a brief chronology of Duchamp's life and career.
- 'I have always had a horror of being a "professional" painter. The minute you become that, you are lost.'
- 'Humour and laughter not necessarily derogatory derision are my pet tools. This may come from my general philosophy of never taking the world too serious