I wholeheartedly recommend this wonderful book to everyone who knows how to read English. Marcel Duchamp was perhaps the premier iconclast of the twentieth century, and the runners up might be Buckminster Fuller & Le Corbusier. The book is NOT a boring monograph; it is a lot of fun to read. Tompkins is a Duchamp enthusiast but manages to wade through the mythology and bull to present the reader with the rosetta stone...
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DUCHAMP: A BIOGRAPHY is a wonderful biography of the artist whom, Tompkins argues persuasively, is the most influential of our almost-completed century. That the art work must be a mental act (a 'cosa mentale,' Leonardo da Vinci had argued many years before); that to be truly creative we need to work AGAINST our esthetic expectations; that art should aspire to be 'non-retinal': these are only some of Duchamp's major perceptions...
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As an artist interested in Marcel Duchamp and his works, I foud this book to be very informative. It's a book that will fascinate even those who have little interest in modern art.
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You don't have to like modern art to enjoy this remarkable biography about the most influention and controversial artists of the twentieth century. Tompkins explores the various interpretations of the art of Marcel Duchamp, most amusing of which is that of the artist himself (he was very laissez-fair when it came to expounding upon his own art). If the reader is not a fan of modern art (least of all the Dada movement) he...
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It's probably best for beginners to read about MD's art instead of his life. So for that try one of the other titles. But if you already HAVE read those, as I have, then this book is indispensable because it gives the information behind the information. Alot of it could be considered gossip but when a guy's entire oeurve is about humor and eroticism, why not read the stories behind the jokes and the love affairs that inspired...
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