Best known for cheeky conceptual works,like his signed urinals ("R. Mutt") and his graffitioed Mona Lisa,Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) was also an extraordinary painter and sculptor ( Nude Descending a Staircase ) who changed the language of twentieth-century art and reigns with Picasso and Matisse as one of its greatest influences. Joseph Masheck has compiled a sampler of the best writing on Duchamp, with pieces that include Duchamp's obituary from Artforum , written by Jasper Johns Octavio Paz on the ready-mades a Duchamp post-mortem by Hans Richter Donald Judd's investigation of Rrose Sélavy a "Counter-Avant-Garde" by Clement Greenberg a consideration by Guillaume Apollinaire and John Cage's "26 Statements on Marcel Duchamp." Illustrated with photographs of Duchamp's seminal pieces, and updated with a substantial preface that offers new scholarship as well as a fascinating consideration of why Duchamp's popularity has exponentially increased since this book first appeared, this is an essential volume for the Duchamp devotee.
