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)
There does not exist a painter who knows himself or knows what he is doing.
The danger is in the artist becoming a writer when he should be a practitioner.
I am against the idea of imitation in art.
Chess is a more beautiful game than art.
My brother was a chess champion, so I learned from him.
The title is like a handle that you can grab hold of.
I wanted to use ordinary objects in a way that challenged the idea of art.
Art is dead; the artist is free.
One must picture everything in the world as an illusion.
I enjoy living on a peaceful planet.
The act of creation is a starting point.
I hate the word 'artistic'.
Music, faithful to its nature, is always ready to take off into the infinite.
I am a Breton, not a Frenchman.
The readymade can be anything, but it must be chosen.
I proposed that art should be a denial of the cult of the eye.
Life is a moving, breathing thing. I can feel it inside me.
I don't work with inspiration, but with construction.
The artist of the future will not be a painter but an inventor.
I am not a painter. I am a brewer of ideas.
Contemporaries of Marcel Duchamp
Other Visual Artss born within 50 years of Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968).