Dialogues With Marcel Duchamp (Da Capo Paperback) [Paperback]

Pierre Cabanne (Author)

Book Description

Series: Da Capo Paperback | Publication Date: August 22, 1987

”Marcel Duchamp, one of this century’s pioneer artists, moved his work through the retinal boundaries which had been established with impressionism into t field with impressionism into t field where language, thought and vision act upon one another, There it changed form through a complex interplay of new mental and physical materials, heralding many of the technical, mental and visual details to be found in more recent art...In the 1920s Duchamp gave up, quit painting. He allowed, perhaps encouraged, the attendant mythology. One thought of his decision, his willing this stopping. Yet on one occasion, he said it was not like that. He spoke of breaking a leg. ’You don’t mean to do it,’ he said.The Large Glass. A greenhouse for his intuition. Erotic machinery, the Bride, held in a see-through cage—’a Hilarious Picture.’ Its cross references of sight and thought, the changing focus of the eyes and mind, give fresh sense to the time and space we occupy, negate any concern with art as transportation. No end is in view in this fragment of a new perspective. ’In the end you lose interest, so I didn’t feel the necessity to finish it.’He declared that he wanted to kill art (’for myself’) but his persistent attempts to destroy frames of reference altered our thinking, established new units of thought, ’a new thought for that object.’The art community feels Duchamp’s presence and his absence. He has changed the condition of being here.”--Jasper Johns, from Marcel Duchamp: An Appreciation

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (August 22, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306803038
• ISBN-13: 978-0306803031
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #72,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Marcel Duchamp interviewed late in life., October 27, 1999

By 

Chester Kasnowski ([e-mail]) (Weston, Vermont, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dialogues With Marcel Duchamp (Da Capo Paperback) (Paperback)

This interview with Marcel Duchamp by Pierre Cabanne provides clarity to the myth that surrounds Duchamp and his non art. Duchamp gave the interview about 2 years before his death. He answers directly and in context the meaning of his work and non work. Others books attempt to tell us not only what his production means but try to tell us what his words mean as well. This books makes clear that Duchamp did not like the art world (although he used it to his advantage), he did not like art that appealed to the eye, he did not make art, he amused himself making objects and he played games. Its an honest interview and needs no interpreters. You can understand the valve of this mans ideas and what they mean to current conceptual art. Or is it conceptual non art.