Marcel Duchamp

The new definitive Duchamp--with rarely seen archival materials and essays by Quentin Meillassoux, Maurizio Lazzarato, Legacy Russell and more

This epic 850-page volume is the new comprehensive appraisal of the endlessly inspirational art of Marcel Duchamp, following the previous classic Duchamp surveys by Arturo Schwartz for Thames & Hudson in 1969 and Pontus Hulten for MIT Press in 1993. Published to accompany an exhibition at the Museum MMK für Moderne Kunst (the first in two decades to present works spanning all phases of the artist's oeuvre), it features texts by leading philosophers, theorists and critics Jacques Caumont, Françoise Le Penven, Huey Copeland, Maurizio Lazzarato, Quentin Meillassoux, Peter Osborne, Legacy Russell and Winnie Wong. Rarely seen archival images of Duchamp at work and at play are interspersed throughout reproductions of his iconic paintings, drawings, sculptures, found objects, publications and editions, to convey the singular integration of life and art for this exemplary "respirateur," as well as spreads from Dada and Surrealist publications and ephemera, and even chess journals. This volume is unrivaled as an account of Duchamp's lifelong ingenuity, wit, craftsmanship and subversiveness.
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) studied painting in Paris. In 1912 he exhibited his controversial "Nude Descending a Staircase," and by 1913 he had abandoned traditional painting and drawing for more experimental forms, including mechanical drawings, studies and notations. In 1914 he introduced his readymades. Duchamp became associated with the Dada movement in Paris and in New York, where he settled permanently in 1942.