Marcel Duchamp 1968 BBC interview

马塞尔·杜尚 (Marcel Duchamp,1887--1968)，纽约达达主义的团体的核心人物。出生于法国，1954 年入美国籍，他的出现改变了西方现代艺术的进程，可以说，西方现代艺术，尤其是第二次世界大战之后的西方艺术，主要是沿着杜尚的思想轨迹行进的，因此，了解杜尚是了解西方现代艺术的关键。

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Marcel DuChamp - Quotes

I force myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.

DuChamp, Marcel.

Besides, you know, all my work, literally and figuratively, fits into a valise...

DuChamp, Marcel. Dec. 16 1954.

For a long time and even before the war, I have disliked this "artistic life" in which I was involved.--It is the exact opposite of what I want. So I tried to somewhat escape from the artists through the library. Then during the war, I felt increasingly more incompatible with this milieu. I absolutely wanted to leave.
DuChamp, Marcel. “Amicalement Marcel: Fourteen Letters from Marcel Duchamp to Walter Pach." Ed. Francis M. Naumann and Hector Obalk. in: Archives of American Art Journal. 29:3-4. 1989.

I thought it would be a good idea to introduce softness in the Ready-made--in other words not altogether hardness--porcelain, iron, or things like that--why not use something flexible as a new shape--changing shape, so that's why the typewriter cover came into existence.
DuChamp, Marcel. Unpublished interview with Harriet, Sidney, and Carroll Janis." 1953.

I had no position. I’ve been a little like Gertrude Stein. To a certain group, she was considered an interesting writer, with very original things...It’s a form of comparison between people of that period. By that, I mean that there are people in every period who aren’t ‘in’.
Duchamp, Marcel (with Pierre Cabanne). Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp. 1971.

Specifications for ‘Readymades’ by planning for a moment to come (on such a day, such a date, such a minute), ‘to inscribe a readymade’ – The ready made can later be looked for. – (with all kinds of delays). The important thing then is just this matter of timing, this snapshot effect. . . . It is a kind of rendezvous (sic).
DuChamp, Marcel. The Writings of Marcel DuChamp. 1973.

To all appearances, the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a clearing. If we give the attributes of a medium to the artist, we must then deny him the state of consciousness on the esthetic plane about what he is doing or why he is doing it. All his decisions in the artistic execution of the work rest with pure intuition and cannot be translated into a self-analysis, spoken or written, or even thought out.
DuChamp, Marcel. ”The Creative Act”. 1957.

In the chain of reactions accompanying the creative act, a link is missing. This gap, representing the inability of the artist to express fully his intention, this difference between what he intended to realize and did realize, is the personal 'art coefficient' contained in the work.
DuChamp, Marcel. ”The Creative Act”. 1957.

All in all, 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 qualification and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. This becomes even more obvious when posterity gives a final verdict and sometimes rehabilitates forgotten artists.
DuChamp, Marcel. ”The Creative Act”. 1957.

I don’t care about the word ‘art’ because it has been so discredited. So I want to get rid of it. There is an unnecessary adoration of ‘art’ today.
DuChamp, Marcel. BBC TV Interview. 1966.

I do things, and people do things, and don’t know why they do it.
DuChamp, Marcel. BBC TV Interview. 1966.

My idea was to choose an object that wouldn’t attract me either by its beauty or by its ugliness. To find a point of indifference in my looking at it. You might say I found any number of those. But at the same time, not so much because it’s sort of difficult, after a while, when you look at something, it becomes very interesting and you can even like it. And the minute I liked it I would discard it.
DuChamp, Marcel. BBC TV Interview. 1966.

I was poking fun at myself most of all.
DuChamp, Marcel. BBC TV Interview. 1966.