Marcel Duchamp

Rating:
Summary: Humor, Wit, and Genius
Review: Bicycle wheel on stool. A urinal. A bottle rack. A comb. A mustached Mona Lisa. And other sordid odds and ends. Though his "Readymades" continue to shock the public as monstrosities to the art world, very few know the story behind the wit and audacity that is Marcel Duchamp. In this exhaustive album of Duchamp's oeuvre, Naumann gives compassion to "Duchamp's things," objects crucified by indifference and imperception, through his stunning layout of text and colored figures; the book itself is truly an aesthetic masterpiece. Albeit an art historian, Naumann does not digress into meditations on esoterica. Rather, he examines Duchamp's letters, interviews, speeches, notes, writings, and other primary source evidence to construct an enlightening and entertaining interpretation for each and every one of Duchamp's masterpieces. Exploring the philosophical questions at play in each work, Naumann explains to us Duhcamp's ideal of art and answers convincingly why the artist provocateur felt the need to abandon the jurisdiction of Taste and Aesthetics. For anyone brave enough to be enlightened about the complexity of a urinal or the phonetic pun behind L.H.O.O.Q (the mustached Mona Lisa), I urge you not to only read this book but to perceive it in its entirety.