FRANCE AUTHOR · EXHIBITIONS · ART
Marcel Duchamp
The readymades of Marcel Duchamp are ordinary manufactured objects that the artist selected and modified, as an antidote to what he called "retinal art". By simply choosing the object (or objects) and repositioning or joining, titling and signing it, the found object became art. Duchamp was not interested in what he called "retinal art"—art that was only visual—and sought other methods of expression. As an antidote to retinal art he began creating readymades in 1914, when the term was commonly used in the United States to describe manufactured items to distinguish them from handmade goods. He selected the pieces on the basis of "visual indifference", and the selections reflect his sense of irony, humor and ambiguity: he said "it was always the idea that came first, not the visual example ...
Seen from today's perspective, Marcel Duchamp seems the most influential artist of the twentieth century.
— from Marcel Duchamp, 1887-1968
Most acclaimed
Correspondance
1994
How to reconcile the necessary loneliness of the creator and the need to build a community of spirits that are close to the neighboring requirements? For Yves Bonnefoy, sharing is the meaning of the poetic experience, in his eyes different from mere literature. One of the moments is that of writing a letter. The edition of his Correspondence associates the letters he has written with those he has received. It brings out the fabric of a life of man and poet, with its network of friendships, constant or mobile, according to alliances, chances and crumples. This first volume, begun with the collaboration of Yves Bonnefoy, brings together more than nine hundred letters exchanged in the second half of the twentieth century, to which are added some e-mails.^ The dialogues, with forty-nine correspondents, are organized around two axes: on the one hand, links from surrealism - André Breton, Pierre Alechinsky, Gilbert Lely, Christian Dotremont, George Henein, Raoul Ubac, Jacqueline Lamba, André Pieyre of Mandiargues, Hans Bellmer, Jean Brun; on the other hand, the friendships which after fifteen years led to the creation of L'Éphémère (1967-1972), the magnificent magazine published by the Maeght editions: André du Bouchet, Jacques Dupin and Gaëtan Picon , Louis-René des Forêts and Paul Celan.^ The other authors of the letters are in no way secondary characters, neither in themselves, nor by the place they occupied in the world of Bonnefoy: Gaston Bachelard, Jean Wahl and Andre Chastel, his masters; then Gilbert Lely, Salah Stétié, Pierre Jean Jouve, Gabriel Bounoure, Christiane Martin du Gard, Philippe Jaccottet, Boris Schloezer, André Frenaud, Michel Butor, Emil Cioran, Monique Wittig, Paul Benichou, Jean-Pierre Richard or Henry Corbin, for to name only them. Here you will find a wealth of information about the poet's work and the sensibility of an era, with notes enriched with excerpts from the writer's Chronology by himself, also unpublished.--Translation of page 4 of cover by Fabula.
Marcel Duchamp, 1887-1968
Features a detailed chronological summary of the artist's life and work, covers his cultural and historical importance, and contains approximately 100 color illustrations with explanatory captions and a concise biography.