Quote by Jasper Johns, in 'Marcel Duchamps 1887 – 1968', 'Artforum 7' no. 3, November 1968, p. 6
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Marcel Duchamp, one of this century's pioneers, moved his work through the retinal boundaries which had been established with Impressionism into a field where language, thought and vision act upon one another. There it changed form through a complex interplay of new mental and physical materials, heralding many of the technical, mental and visual details to be found in more recent art.. .He declared that he wanted to kill art ('for myself') but his persistent attempts to destroy frames of reference altered our thinking, established new units of thought, a "new thought for that object".

— Jasper Johns

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Marcel Duchamp, one of this century's pioneers, moved his work through the retinal boundaries which had been established with Impressionism into a field where language, thought and vision act upon one another. There it changed form through a complex interplay of new mental and physical materials, heralding many of the technical, mental and visual details to be found in more recent art.. .He declared that he wanted to kill art ('for myself') but his persistent attempts to destroy frames of reference altered our thinking, established new units of thought, a "new thought for that object"." in the context of "Quote by Jasper Johns, in 'Marcel Duchamps 1887 – 1968', 'Artforum 7' no. 3, November 1968, p. 6" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Marcel Duchamp" (Quotes about Marcel Duchamp: sorted chronologically, by date of the quotes about Marcel Duchamp) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Marcel Duchamp

About Marcel Duchamp

Henri-Robert-Marcel Duchamp (July 28, 1887 – October 2, 1968) was a French painter, sculptor, chess player, and writer whose work is associated with Cubism, Dada, and conceptual art. Duchamp is commonly regarded, along with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, as one of the three artists who helped to define the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting and sculpture. He was the first artist creating 'ready-made' in modern art.