“In discussing his work [the art of Marcel Duchamp, ] it is necessary to avoid overrating his silence. I hold him in a very high esteem, but I have to reject his silence. Duchamp was simply finished. He had run out of ideas; he was unable to come up with anything important… I would say that even the bourgeois tendencies in Duchamp's work – i. e., a form of provocative, bohemian behavior intended to 'épater le bourgeois'- follow the same path. Duchamp started out from here and wanted to shock the bourgeoisie, and because of that he destroyed his creative powers… The content of Duchamp's silence refers to the aim of leaving the subconscious passive, of developing it. This is the aspect of Duchamp, which is related to Surrealism. The surrealists asserted that they could live with their subconscious; they thought they were above reality, but instead they were beneath it. They thought they could fish in muddy waters…. but to my mind, the images which emerged have a repressive effect.”

—  Joseph Beuys

Quote in an interview with , 1986; republished in: Joseph Beuys, Carin Kuoni. Joseph Beuys in America: Energy Plan for the Western Man. New York, 1993.pp. 169-170
Beuys refers in his quote to the so-called 'Silence of Marcel Duchamp', the period that Duchamp stopped creating art
1980's

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In discussing his work [the art of Marcel Duchamp, ] it is necessary to avoid overrating his silence. I hold him in a v…" by Joseph Beuys?
Joseph Beuys photo
Joseph Beuys 50
German visual artist 1921–1986

Related quotes

Alexander Calder photo

“Marcel Duchamp's 'Nude descending the stairs' is the result of the desire for motion. Here he has also eliminated representative form. This avoids the connotation of ideas which would interfere with the success of the main issue - the sense of movement.”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

1930s - 1950s, Statement from Modern Painting and Sculpture', (1933)
Source: en.wikiquote.org - Alexander Calder / Quotes of Alexander Calder / 1930s - 1950s / Statement from Modern Painting and Sculpture', (1933)

Daniel Buren photo
Peter Blake photo

“In one work Marcel Duchamp meets Tracey Emin in the desert, with three camp cowboys. In another he meets Elvis and the Spice Girls.”

Peter Blake (1932) British artist

Charlotte Higgins, "It was 37 years ago today – and Sgt Pepper cover has still failed to pay", http://www.guardian.co.uk/thebeatles/story/0,,1230411,00.html The Guardian, 2004-06-03
On his painting, Marcel Duchamp's World Tour.
Art

Joseph Beuys photo

“He [ Marcel Duchamp ] entered this object [the 'Urinal' ready-made] into the museum and noticed that its transportation from one place to another made it into art. But he failed to draw the clear and simple conclusion that every man is an artist.”

Joseph Beuys (1921–1986) German visual artist

as quoted in Joseph Beuys and the Celtic Wor(l)d: A Language of Healing, by Victoria Walters, LIT Verlag Münster, 2012, p. 206
Quotes after 1984, posthumous published

“What fascinates me about Duchamp is the idea of tearing down the wall between the art object and reality.”

Anselm Kiefer (1945) German painter and sculptor

Source: "Anselm Kiefer and the Philosophy of Martin Heidegger" Matthew Biro, Cambridge University Press 1998, p. 304

Mark Rothko photo
Marcel Duchamp photo
Marcel Duchamp photo

“My brother [the sculptor artist Raymond Duchamp-Villon had a kitchen in his little house in Puteaux, and he had the idea of decorating it with pictures by his buddies. He asked Gleizes, Metzinger, La Fresnaye, and I think Leger [all Cubist painters, then] to do some little paintings of the same size, like a sort of frieze. He asked me too, and I painted a coffee grinder which I made to explode.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

Quote from: Entretiens avec Marcel Duchamp, 1965; as cited in Futurism, ed. By Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008, p. 198
Duchamp's quote is referring to his painting 'Moulin a café', 1911 - many times reproduced from the lithography, made for the 1947 re-edition of Gleizes and Metzingers book 'Du Cubisme'
1951 - 1968

Related topics