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)
The only way to be free is to be alone.
I am not interested in the past, I am interested in the future.
The only thing that is real is the imagination.
I am not a philosopher, I am an artist.
The only way to live is to die.
Art is not about itself but the attention we bring to it.
I have drawn a mustache on the Mona Lisa.
A readymade is a work of art that is not a work of art.
To be an artist, you have to be a gambler.
I don't think art is a religion.
The idea of the readymade is to question the very definition of art.
My art is not for the eyes, but for the mind.
I have never been interested in making beautiful things.
The public is the artist.
I wanted to put art back in the service of the mind.
I consider myself a 'passer-by' in life.
I have never been interested in the aesthetic value of things.
My art is an attitude.
The readymade is a way of questioning the idea of authorship.
I don't believe in the 'masterpiece'.
Contemporaries of Marcel Duchamp
Other Visual Artss born within 50 years of Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968).