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)
To be a chess player is to be an artist.
I don't want to prove anything. I don't want to convince anyone.
The world is a game, and I am a player.
I am a breather.
The 'art coefficient' is an arithmetical relation between the unexpressed but intended and the unintentionally expressed.
The choice of the ready-made is always based on visual indifference and, at the same time, on the total absence of good or bad taste.
There is no such thing as a solution because there is no such thing as a problem.
I have drawn a line that I cannot cross.
The artist of the future will be a scientist.
I don't believe in art for art's sake.
The creative act is not limited to the artist.
I am not a painter. I am a chess player.
The spectator is the one who makes the picture.
The ready-made is a work of art without an artist.
I have never been interested in the aesthetic side of art.
The art of living is more important than the art of painting.
I am against the word 'art'.
The creative act is a game.
My intention was always to get away from the physical aspect of painting.
The artist is a medium.
Contemporaries of Marcel Duchamp
Other Visual Artss born within 50 years of Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968).