I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste. Marcel Duchamp More Quotes by Marcel Duchamp More Quotes From Marcel Duchamp The artist performs only one part of the creative process. The onlooker completes it, and it is the onlooker who has the last word. Marcel Duchamp lastscreativeartist Anything is art if an artist says it is. Marcel Duchamp artistifsart I don't believe in art. I believe in artists. Marcel Duchamp beliefbelieveart It's not what you see that is art. Art is the gap. Marcel Duchamp art-isgapsart Artmaking is making the invisible, visible. Marcel Duchamp visibleinvisible Humor is the only reason to live. Marcel Duchamp reason-to-livereason 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 I have to, but I don’t put any trust in it. We never understand each other. Marcel Duchamp damnlanguageuse It's the viewer that makes the work. Marcel Duchamp viewers 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 qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act. Marcel Duchamp creativitycreativeart You cannot define electricity. The same can be said of art. It is a kind of inner current in a human being, or something which needs no definition. Marcel Duchamp definitionsartneeds I like living, breathing better than working...my art is that of living. Each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral, it's a sort of constant euphoria. Marcel Duchamp euphoriabreathingart Art has the lovely habit of ruining all artistic theories. Marcel Duchamp lovelyhabitart All this twaddle, the existence of God, atheism, determinism, liberation, societies, death, etc., are pieces of a chess game called language, and they are amusing only if one does not preoccupy oneself with 'winning or losing this game of chess. Marcel Duchamp chess-gamegameswinning Destruction is also creation. Marcel Duchamp creationdestruction I am interested in ideas, not merely in visual products. Marcel Duchamp creativityimaginationideas Society takes what it wants. The artist himself does not count, because there is no actual existence for the work of art. The work of art is always based on the two poles of the onlooker and the maker, and the spark that comes from the bipolar action gives birth to something - like electricity. But the onlooker has the last word, and it is always posterity that makes the masterpiece. The artist should not concern himself with this, because it has nothing to do with him. Marcel Duchamp givingtwoart I feel shame, not for the wrong things I have done, but for the right things that I have failed to do. Marcel Duchamp shamedonefeels Art is like a shipwreck; it's every man for himself. Marcel Duchamp shipwreckmenart My idea was to chose 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 see Marcel Duchamp objectsindifferenceideas I believe that the artist doesn't know what he does. I attach even more importance to the spectator than to the artist. Marcel Duchamp artistdoebelieve
