Marcel Duchamp

“Girst elegantly unravels the skeins of Duchamp’s thinking. . . . An essential compendium for puzzling out an essential artist.” —Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation Among the most influential artists of the last hundred years, Marcel Duchamp holds great allure for many contemporary artists worldwide and is largely considered to be one of the founding fathers of modern art. Despite this popularity, books on Duchamp are often hyper-theoretical, rarely presenting the artist in an accessible way. This new book explores the artist’s life and work through short, alphabetical dictionary entries that introduce his legacy in a clear and engaging way. From alchemy and anatomy to Warhol and windows, The Duchamp Dictionary offers a pithy and readable text that draws on in-depth scholarship and the very latest research. Thomas Girst includes close to 200 entries on the most interesting and important artworks, relationships, people, and ideas in Duchamp’s life—from The Bicycle Wheel and Fountain to Walter and Louise Arensberg, Peggy Guggenheim, Katherine Dreier, and Arturo Schwarz. Delightful, newly commissioned illustrations introduce each letter of the alphabet and accompany select entries, capturing the irreverent spirit of the artist himself.

Created while the artist was living variously in New York, Buenos Aires, and occupied France, during the global catastrophes of war and fascism, these works express the anguish of displacement and celebrate the freedom of geopolitical homelessness.

Journalist and historian Marquis tells the story of French-born American painter and all-around celebrity Duchamp (1887-1968). A substantially different version of the biography was published as Marcel Duchamp: Eros, c'est la vie by Whitson in 1980. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Published on the fiftieth anniversary of Marcel Duchamp’s death, Duchamp’s Last Day offers a radical reading of the artist’s final hours. Just moments after Duchamp died, his closest friend Man Ray took a photograph of him. His face is wan; his eyes are closed; he appears calm. Taking this image as a point of departure, Donald Shambroom begins to examine the surrounding context—the dinner with Man Ray and another friend, Robert Lebel, the night Duchamp died, the conversations about his own death at that dinner and elsewhere, and the larger question of whether this radical artist’s death can be read as an extension of his work. Shambroom’s in-depth research into this final night, and his analysis of the photograph, feeds into larger questions about the very nature of artworks and authorship which Duchamp raised in his lifetime. In the case of this mysterious and once long-lost photograph, who is the author? Man Ray or Duchamp? Is it an artwork or merely a record? Has the artist himself turned into one of his own readymades? A fascinating essay that is both intimate and steeped in art history, Duchamp’s Last Day is filled with intricate details from decades of research into this peculiar encounter between art, life, and death. Shambroom’s book is a wonderful study of one of the greatest artists of the twentieth century.

In August 1946, Marcel Duchamp spent 5 weeks in Switzerland, including 5 days at the Hotel Bellevue near Chexbres, on Lake Geneva, discovering the Forestay waterfall. A multidisciplinary event took place in May 2010 to attempt to understand why the artist chose this waterfall for his final masterpiece 'Étant Donnés'.

Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) hat mit seinem bilderstürmerischen Werk die Kunst des 20. Jahrhunderts und unsere Vorstellung von ihr radikal verändert. München spielte dabei eine nicht ganz unwichtige Rolle. Verärgert über die Ablehnung seines Gemäldes Akt, eine Treppe herabsteigend Nr. 2 im Salon des Indépendants verlässt Duchamp Paris und fährt Ende Juni 1912 nach München. Er will einen guten Freund besuchen, den Maler Max Bergmann, den er in Paris kennengelernt hatte. Bald beschliesst er, länger zu bleiben, und mietet sich in einem Zimmer in der Barerstrasse ein. Am Ende bleibt er drei Monate und entwickelt mehrere bedeutende Arbeiten, die heute u.a. im Museum of Modern Art in New York zu sehen sind, wie etwa das Gemälde Von der Jungfrau zur Braut. Exhibition: Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany (31.3.-15.7.2012).

Artist of the Century. These eleven illustrated essays explore the structure and meaning of Duchamp's work as part of an ongoing critical enterprise that has just begun.