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Article: "Joseph Cornell/Marcel Duchamp... in resonance.".(Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
- Article from:
- Artforum International
- Article date:
- June 22, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1999 Artforum International Magazine, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART
When asked, in 1961, whether he wanted to destroy art, Marcel Duchamp replied: "I don't want to destroy art for anybody else but for myself, that's all." While never quite destroying it for himself (or anyone else, which is a pity) - the museum's rapacious maw would frustrate that - Duchamp altered so absolutely what and why and how art is (by perverting received notions of what constitutes it, by eroticizing and laughing at it, by making it a joke) - that he defaced it, much as he defaced himself, replacing Marcel with a more gamine, photographic other, Rrose Selavy: The body's face in Etant donnes is impossible to see.
And ...