Curatorialist

Like everyone, I have a special place in my heart for Duchamp. I simply love his story, love his character, love his role in art history. He was a joker, a chess player, a true lover of art, imagery and critical thinking. He also loved Cezanne and was influenced heavily by him in his seminal days and that, to me, is the sign of someone who has art inside. To truly love Cezanne is to truly love fine art. And Duchamp did both, in spades – even if he remained very non-reverential of art to his last day. And wasn’t that really his gift?

Strangely, despite all that, I never really adored Duchamp’s work. He tried Impressionism, he tried Cubism and none of it really was as good as the major artists of those movements. And for the movement that he did start, my personal taste was for what happened later on with it, even though I know he paved that road. That is neither here nor there, though. What is here and there is that Duchamp changed the course of art history and few people in the world can lay claim to that. He understood what was so great about Impressionism and Cubism and he honored it by moving it forward into the next place it could go. I love how artists work like this over time, like relay racers, each with their particular leg of the race to run, handing off batons to each other to propel the entire world forward.

I really enjoyed finding this video of him describing himself. It has a bit of an off-kilter feel to it in the pacing and music, but also in the cut and paste style of the dialogue. Despite that, the video is filled with life and does a not-bad job of capturing a bit of his spirit, and it was inspiring to me to watch this and consider all that he contibuted.