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Art Quotes by Marcel Duchamp

67 Art quotes by Marcel Duchamp

All Art quotes Marcel Duchamp’s page

Marcel Duchamp points out that a work of art lives only when a viewer interprets it, making the spectator as important as the creator. He dismisses fixed definitions, calling words like truth and art stupid, and he sees art as an inner current that cannot be neatly described. The quotes challenge conventional ideas of authorship.

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The most interesting thing about artists is how they live

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Art is not about itself but the attention we bring to it.

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“Not everyone is an artist but everyone is a fucking critic.”

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I wanted to kill art for myself… …a new thought for that object.

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Anything is art if an artist says it is.

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Can works be made which are not 'of art'?

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I don't believe in art. I believe in artists.

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It's not what you see that is art. Art is the gap.

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Why are all the artists so dead-set on distorting? It seems to be a reaction against photography, but I'm not sure.

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

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The artist performs only one part of the creative process. The onlooker completes it, and it is the onlooker who has the…

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I've decided that art is a habit-forming drug. That's all it is, for the artist, for the collector, for anybody connected with…

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I believe that a picture, a work of art, lives and dies just as we do.

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An abstract painting need in 50 years by no means look "abstract" any longer.

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Distortion came first from the fauves, who, in turn, were under the strong influence of primitive art.

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The life of an artist is like the life of a monk, a lewd monk if you like, very Rabelaisian. It is…

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The entire world of art has reached such a low level, it has been commercialized to such a degree that art and…

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“You get my idea. Nothing of "artistic" literature about it, just straight medicine, a universal panacea, a fetish in a sense: if…

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I have drawn people's attention to the fact that art is a mirage. A mirage, just like the oasis that appears in…

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You cannot define electricity. The same can be said of art. It is a kind of inner current in a human being,…

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“I am still a victim of chess. It has all the beauty of art - and much more. It cannot be commercialized.…

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What I have in mind is that art may be bad, good or indifferent, but, whatever adjective is used, we must call…

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I couldn't go into the haphazard drawing or the paintings, the splashing of paint. I wanted to go back to a completely…

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I like living, breathing better than working...my art is that of living. Each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed…

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“Let us consider two important factors, the two poles of the creation of art: the artist on one hand, and on the…

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The word 'art' interests me very much. If it comes from Sanskrit, as I've heard, it signifies 'making.' Now everyone makes something,…

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Society takes what it wants. The artist himself does not count, because there is no actual existence for the work of art.…

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In France, in Europe, the young artists of any generation always act as grandsons of some great man - Poussin, for example,…

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To all appearances the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out…

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The life of a chess master is much more difficult than that of an artist - much more depressing. An artist knows…

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Art has the lovely habit of ruining all artistic theories.

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Art has absolutely no existence as veracity, as truth.

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Can one make works which are not works of 'art'?

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The only thing that is not art is inattention

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I'm nothing else but an artist, I'm sure, and delighted to be.

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Not all artists are Chess players, but all Chess players are artists

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Art doesn't interest me. Only artists interest me.

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Art is like a shipwreck; it's every man for himself.

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Art is all a matter of personality.

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The word 'art' interests me very much. If it comes from Sanskrit, as I've heard, it signifies 'making.

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More by Marcel Duchamp

One is a painter because one wants so-called freedom; one doesn't want to go to the office every morning.

Humor is the only reason to live.

Society takes what it wants. The artist himself does not count, because there is no actual existence for the work of art. The work…

The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and…

I believe that the artist doesn't know what he does. I attach even more importance to the spectator than to the artist.

Living is more a question of what one spends than what one makes.

Rational intelligence is dangerous and leads to ratiocination. The painter is a medium who doesn't realize what he is doing. No translation can express…

Everything important that I have done can be put into a little suitcase.

As soon as we start putting our thoughts into words and sentences everything gets distorted, language is just no damn good—I use it because…

The basis for my own work during the years just before coming to America in 1915 was a desire to break up forms -…

The curious thing about that moustache and goatee is that when you look at the Mona Lisa it becomes a man. It is not…

I am afraid to end up being in need to sell canvases - in other words, to be a society painter.

In the midst of each epoch, I fully realize that a new epoch will dawn.

To all appearances the artist acts like a mediumistic being who, from the labyrinth beyond time and space, seeks his way out to a…

Words such as truth, art, veracity, or anything are stupid in themselves.