Marcel Duchamp
Father of conceptual art
Most quoted
"Art is the only form of activity in which man as man shows himself to be a true individual. Only in art is he capable of going beyond the animal state, because art is an outlet toward regions which are not ruled by time and space."
— from Session on the Creative Act, 1957
"The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act."
— from The Creative Act, 1957
"What I have in mind is that art may be bad, good or indifferent, but whatever adjective is used, we must call it art, and bad art is still art in the same way that a bad emotion is still an emotion."
— from Speech, 1957
All quotes by Marcel Duchamp (321)
I don't want to be a priest. I want to be an atheist.
I have always been interested in the idea of the 'anti-beauty.'
I don't want to be a soldier. I want to be a pacifist.
I have always been interested in the idea of the 'anti-expression.'
I don't want to be a capitalist. I want to be a communist.
I have always been interested in the idea of the 'anti-emotion.'
I don't want to be a conformist. I want to be a rebel.
I have always been interested in the idea of the 'anti-meaning.'
I don't want to be a success. I want to be a failure.
My art is that of living: every second, every breath is a work which is not inscribed on anything, which is neither visual nor cerebral. It's a sort of constant euphoria.
I like living, breathing, better than working.
The individual, man, the human species, is a parasite on the planet.
I don't think that art is a religion. I think that art is a form of expression.
I have never been able to believe in the absolute value of anything.
I believe in the absolute relativity of everything.
The only value of art is to be a means of escape.
I have always been interested in the idea of the non-art.
There is no such thing as a work of art that is not finished.
The only way to avoid being influenced is to be dead.
The artist of the future will be a man of science.
Contemporaries of Marcel Duchamp
Other Visual Artss born within 50 years of Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968).