Product Description

In the twenties, Surrealists proclaimed that words had stopped playing around and had begun to make love. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the writings of Marcel Duchamp, who fashioned some of the more joyous and ingenious couplings and uncouplings in modern art. This collection beings together two essential interviews and two statements about his art that underscore the serious side of Duchamp. But most of the book is made up of his experimental writings, which he called Texticles, the long and extraordinary notes he wrote for The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Eben (also known as The Large Glass ), and the outrageous puns and alter-ego he constructed for his female self, Rrose Slavy (Eros, cest la vie or arouser la viedrink it up; celebrate life). Wacky, perverse, deliberately frustrating, these entertaining notes are basic for understanding one of the twentieth centurys most provocative artists, a figure whose influence on the contemporary scene has never been stronger.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #82479 in Books
• Published on: 1989-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Customer Reviews

Essential Perhaps.
This is more than just a sample of Duchamp's writings. Here are some basic reproductions (in black and white) of a number of Duchamp's works - or 'things' as he sometimes called them. There is the text of his talk, 'The Creative Act' given in April 1957 in Houston - as well as his thoughts on Readymades (Apropos of "Readymades"), dating from 1961...and much more. Duchamp's art is a kind of stormy marriage of the Visual and the Textual - and you really need this book to get anything like a grasp of Duchamp's achievement. His jottings and declarations are - by turns - maddeningly puerile and inspiring.

The only limitation of the book form is that it systematises an aspiring a-systematic artist. But, whatever...

The Writings of Marcel Du Champ
For those who love to read literary criticism about the Surrealist movement, this book can be helpful, but beware of its scholarly nature. Much of the writing leans toward the technical, making the book rough going for the uninitiated. Nevertheless, this title contains plenty of useful information for both student and non-student alike.