An abstract painting need in 50 years by no means look "abstract" any longer.
Marcel DuchampRead
I never finished the 'Large Glass' because, after working on it for eight years, I probably got interested in something else; also, I was tired. It may be that, subconsciously, I never intended to finish it because the word 'finish' implies an acceptance of traditional methods and all the paraphernalia that accompany them.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the artist's ambivalence towards completion and traditional methods in art.
Marcel Duchamp's quote reveals his complex feelings about artistic creation and the concept of finishing a piece. He suggests that his prolonged work on 'Large Glass' may have stemmed from a lack of desire to conform to conventional artistic standards, indicating that the act of finishing symbolizes acceptance of established norms. This perspective challenges the traditional notions of artistic completion and the pressure to conform to expectations.
Themes
ArtCreationCompletionProcessTradition
In practice
Example use cases
During an art seminar discussing the creative process, this quote could illustrate the idea that art doesn't have to conform to traditional completion.
More from Marcel Duchamp
All quotes βAll this twaddle, the existence of God, atheism, determinism, liberation, societies, death, etc., are pieces of a chess game called language, and they are amusing only if one does not preoccupy oneself with 'winning or losing this game of chess.
Marcel DuchampRead
I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialized. Chess is much purer than art in its social position.
Marcel DuchampRead
It's a product of two poles - there's the pole of the one who makes the work, and the pole of the one who looks at it. I give the latter as much importance as the one who makes it.
Marcel DuchampRead
I became a librarian at the Sainte-Genevieve Library in Paris. I made this gesture to rid myself of a certain milieu, a certain attitude, to have a clean conscience, but also to make a living. I was twenty-five. I had been told that one must make a living, and I believed it.
Marcel DuchampRead
Humor and laughter - not necessarily derogatory derision - are my pet tools. This may come from my general philosophy of never taking the world too seriously - for fear of dying of boredom.
Marcel DuchampRead
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