"bête comme un peintre" or in English terms "stupid like a painter" is about as far from Marcel Duchamp as one can get. I have encountered Duchamp's work in every art and art history class I have taken in college and yet I am baffled that I have only ever known him as a "readymade" artist (well, besides his Mona Lisa, L.H.O.O.Q.) and not as the huge revolutionary presence he has been in the art world for a century. When I read, especially when I have you reflect on what I read I annotate, I have never highlighted so much of a reading as I did with this well interview/article on Duchamp. He is so prolific in what he says and so sure of what he believes I am simply in awe of him as an intellectual. Reading this essay reminded me of a 60 Minutes interview done on one...Lady Gaga and I see a lot of parallelism in what she is attempting to do in her art and Duchamp's many philosophy’s. I swear she read this piece immediately before she did the interview.
I find it amazing what a "jack of all trades" kind of artist he was or really "free of all cults and movements" and find it so interesting to find out the extent of the scrutiny he received and controversy he caused through his work which. I love how critical he was of art especially "retinal" anti-intellectual art and the art of the 20th century. It’s also interesting to find how detached he became of his own work.
Art, in his eyes, is a drug (and a gateway one at that) that has no truth and "a game between artist and onlooker" are just a few of his "little idea(s) of mine" but man oh man are the idea's of this genius man anything but "little". You know that question you get sometimes of "who are the 5 people in history you'd like to have dinner with?" I've never had much to say, buy boy has Marcel Duchamp become one of them on mine.
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