An abstract painting need in 50 years by no means look "abstract" any longer.
Marcel DuchampRead
One does not contemplate it like a picture. The idea of contemplation disappears completely. Simply take note that it's a bottle rack, or that it's a bottle rack that has changed its destination... It's not the visual question of the readymade that counts; it's the fact that it exists, even.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the significance of existence over mere appearance in art.
In this quote, Marcel Duchamp highlights the idea that the essence of a piece of art lies not in what it visually represents but in its mere existence and the concept it embodies. The focus shifts from passive observation to an active acknowledgment of the object's place in a different context, challenging traditional perceptions of art and encouraging viewers to engage with the meaning beyond the surface.
Themes
ContemplationExistenceArtPerceptionReadymade
In practice
Example use cases
During an art lecture, I could use this quote to illustrate Duchamp's philosophy on the nature of art.
More from Marcel Duchamp
All quotes →All 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
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.
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
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Art is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.
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When I write plays, I'm already seeing the shapes on stage, of the actors and their interaction, and so on and so forth. I don't think I've ever written one play as an abstract piece, as a literary piece, floating in the air somewhere, to be flushed out later on.
Wole SoyinkaRead
I am a professional photographer because it is the best way I know to earn the money I require to take care of my wife and children.
Irving PennRead