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 an artist. I want to be a man.
I have drawn out of life a kind of hygiene. I have tried to avoid the traps of life.
The world is a game, a game of chance, a game of life and death.
I was very happy to be a chess player, because it was a way to escape from the art world.
I have never had any ambition to be a professional artist.
I have always been interested in the idea of the 'anti-art'.
The art of the future will be a game.
I don't know if I believe in anything. I just live.
I am a 'respirateur'. I breathe, that's all.
I wanted to put painting at the service of the mind.
The 'ready-made' is a sort of rendezvous.
I was trying to get away from the physical aspect of painting.
I have always been interested in the idea of the 'non-art'.
The art of the future will be a mental thing.
I have always been interested in the idea of the 'anti-retinal'.
I don't believe in the aesthetic value of art.
I have always been interested in the idea of the 'non-aesthetic'.
The art of the future will be a conceptual thing.
I have always been interested in the idea of the 'anti-visual'.
I don't believe in the beauty of art.
Contemporaries of Marcel Duchamp
Other Visual Artss born within 50 years of Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968).