Infinite Regress: Marcel Duchamp 1910-1941

October Books

by David Joselit

There is not one Marcel Duchamp, but several. Within his oeuvre Duchamp practiced a variety of modernist idioms and invented an array of contradictory artist and art dealer, conceptualist and craftsman, chess champion and dreamer, dandy and recluse.

In Infinite Regress , David Joselit considers the plurality of identities and practices within Duchamp's life and art between 1910 and 1941, conducting a synthetic reading of his early and middle career. Taking into account underacknowledged works and focusing on the conjunction of the machine and the commodity in Duchamp's art, Joselit notes a consistent opposition between the material world and various forms of measurement, inscription, and quantification. Challenging conventional accounts, he describes the readymade strategy not merely as a rejection of painting, but as a means of producing new models of the modern self.

Hardcover

First published March 13, 1998

About the author

David Joselit is an American art historian who is currently Professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University, and also a published author, including being an editor of October.

Reviews

[Micheal · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I don't believe in art. I believe in artists."

-Marcel Duchamp