Paris Montparnasse

by Valérie Bougault

"Who was Marcel Duchamp? Some know him as a great chessplayer. In his lifetime, he was famous for his personal elegance and his profound indifference to money. He was also a key figure in the history of modern art, who astonished, disturbed and shocked his contemporaries with his unusual and often absurd works. With Fountain, he showed how the artist's will alone could elevate an industrial object - a porcelain urinal - to the status of a work of art, merely by signing it and exhibiting it in a gallery. In doing so, he brought about a crucial change in the practice of art, which culminated in the second half of this century in the assertion of the primacy of the artist over the object. The only thing Duchamp's disciples had in common was their capacity for controversy. Yet through them, he became the undisputed guru of the international avant-garde."--Jacket.