Page 37 - Studio International - June 1966

Left
Nude descending a staircase,
no. 1 1911
Oil on cardboard
37 3/4 x 23 1/2 in.
Philadelphia Museum of Art
(Arensberg Collection)
Right
Bride 1912
Oil on canvas
35 1/2 x 21 3/4 in.
Philadelphia Museum of Art
(Arensberg Collection)

motel in the country. It could be seen as an artistic con- Are you better appreciated here, and why did you settle
ception I suppose.' here ?
`Technology will surely drown us. The individual is `The melting pot idea, you know. And the lack of dif-
disappearing rapidly. We'll eventually be nothing but ference between classes. It interested me then. The
numbered ants. The group thing grows. You can already French Revolution was more evident here in those days.
feel the tendency in the arts today. Speed, money, in- It was good for an artist. Of course, it's a little messy now.
terest. A hundred years ago there were few artists, few Such business affairs, papers, taxes ! Do you know there
dealers and few collectors. Art was a world by itself. Now was hardly any tax to pay here until after the crash?'
it is completely exoteric—not my cup of tea. There is
Female fig leaf 1951 Duchamp spoke then about how lazy he is, how much
Sculpture (galvanized plaster) something wonderful about the secret society that is lost. he enjoys a placid life, and how, although he is no beat-
4 3/4 x 3 1/4 in. `To get back to what you asked me about the ready- nik, he is 'very like'. Then he abruptly shifted back to the
The Mary Sisler Collection
mades. You can't choose with your taste. Taste is the problem of art in America.
Object-dart 1951 great enemy. The difficulty I had was to choose. Now my `We don't speak about science because we don't know
Sculpture (galvanized plaster) Bottle Dryer is in the books and some regard it as a beauti- the language, but everyone speaks about art. Art is going
3+ x 8 x 1 in.
The Mary Sisler Collection ful sculpture, but not all ready-mades were the same. down to the people who talk about it. You know, about
Once, many years ago, I was dining with some artists that question of success : you have to decide whether
at the old Hotel des Artistes here in New York and there you'll be Pepsi-Cola, Chocolat Meunier, Gertrude Stein
was a huge old-fashioned painting behind us— a battle or James Joyce... James Joyce is maybe Pepsi-Cola.
scene, I think. So I jumped up and signed it. You see, You can't name him without everybody knowing what
that was a ready-made which had everything except you're talking about. What happened to me is worse,
taste. And no system. I didn't want to be called an artist, though. That painting [meaning Nude descending a
you know. I wanted to use my possibility to be an indi- staircase, which he referred to only as "that painting"
vidual, and I suppose I have, no ?' throughout the interview] was known but I was not. I
We then spoke a little while about Duchamp's renown, was obliterated by the painting and only lately have I
and he pointed out that he had never been particularly stepped on it. I spent my life hidden behind it.... You
cherished by the French. know, an artist only does one or two or three things in his
`You can't be a prophet in your own country. I certainly whole life. The rest is merely filling up the hole. It is not
am not.' desirable to be Pepsi-Cola. It is dangerous.' q
247