M.Z. Can you tell me a bit about the exhibition you curated at the Philadelphia Museum of Art?

M.A. The exhibition we organized was titled “Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain Scandal”, and the occasion was the centennial of the Society of Independent Artists exhibition in New York, which opened in April 1917. That was the show where Duchamp submitted the urinal, which was then excluded. Since it had been a hundred years and because the museum has very important works by Duchamp in its collection, we thought it was important to organize a show. As you know, the original Fountain disappeared shortly after the 1917 Independents exhibition, and many copies have been produced since then.
The first full-scale replica was made for an avant-garde exhibition in New York that focused on fountains, and they asked Duchamp for permission, which he granted.
It turns out that our collection holds that first full-scale replica. That’s why we organized this exhibition for the 100th anniversary.

M.Z. In a text called “The Great Problem of Art in This Country,” Duchamp expressed a desire to recreate ideas in painting, and in doing so, he recreated ideas not just in painting, but in art in general. What would you say were the main reconceptions he produced through his work?

M.A. I’d say Duchamp was concerned with avoiding what he called a “signature style,” a style designed by the artist, a recognizable style, and then a marketable one—finding a successful approach and sticking with it. I don’t think he rejected the idea of making art, but he rejected falling into a predictable way of working. And that’s one reason why, if you look at his works from 1910 to 1960, you’ll see not just a diversity of themes or styles, but also of materials.
In his early years of drawing and painting, there’s a standard form, then a new painter identity emerges, and of course, new techniques—like those used for The Large Glass and the ready-mades. That continued. For example, in the 1930s, he was very interested in issues of technique and reproduction—because of the reproduction of his own works in different formats. Then, in the last 20 years of his life, he focused on Étant Donnés, the diorama piece, in secret. It’s a work that connects to many of his long-term intellectual concerns—like the idea of three- or four-dimensional vision, for instance, or the issue of the nude—brought back in the form of a life-size sculpture inside a diorama. It seems to return to earlier ideals of realism, which much of his work had rejected, but that’s a superficial way of seeing it. As we’ve said, his work was always about exploring ideas from different angles.

M.Z. Even though he wasn’t interested in coining a particular stylistic output, as you mentioned earlier, Duchamp developed an entire aesthetic strategy that probably overflowed the moment in which he was creating it. Would you agree with that? Do you think Duchamp was intentionally producing an aesthetic strategy with his work—new approaches to well-known ideas at the time, like realism and the kinds of issues modernist artists were dealing with?

M.A. I’ll answer your question with a “yes” and “no.” Yes, because he was certainly ahead of his time—even ahead of his closest friends.
For example, in 1910 and 1911, he quickly decided to find a different space…
In the 1920s and 30s, he often moved in surprising directions. This ended up being a very innovative strategy.
On the other hand, I think he managed to convey fundamental ideas in various forms, and he was open about his own debts to 19th-century literature and the arts. He was very aware that he was nurtured, in some way, by the history of photography, sculpture, and painting. That’s why I’d say both yes and no.

M.Z. When Duchamp was working on Nude Descending a Staircase, he once said he was thinking that an artist could use anything—a line, a dot—to symbolize whatever they wanted, conventionally or unconventionally. This was probably when he realized that a mass-produced object—or any object—could signify something beyond itself. What do you think about this in relation to his work?

M.A. I think the way you frame this is very important in terms of his thinking, and these aspects shouldn’t be confused. When he was talking about Nude Descending a Staircase, he was possibly thinking about representation in different dimensions—he was referring to ideals he took from certain philosophers and mathematicians of the 20th century. How do you live with the possibility of going beyond the two-dimensionality of realist art?
This led to ideas about the fourth dimension—he talked about ideas of the dimension n-1. The fourth dimension.
Probably because he was interested in defining visual art in ways beyond the conventional. Defining a space of artistic freedom for himself.
A few years later, he made his first readymade, Bicycle Wheel, in his Paris studio. And this was how it was understood in the 1960s, especially by pop artists and others. Duchamp encouraged the use of the point (as you mentioned).
The idea is that you can work outside known approaches.
It’s another way of stretching the boundaries and redefining the rules of visual art. These are two aspects that are definitely present, but they’re not identical.

M.Z. Speaking of the readymade, this specific type of art raises not only the question of the nature of art or the artist, and their purpose, but also of the mechanisms of production involved. All this brought about new ways of thinking about art, as you’ve said, across different periods. Do you think the readymade can be seen as an approach toward new categories in art?

M.A. There’s no doubt that in the 50s and 60s—and even today—many artists, including pop artists, muralists, artists of the 80s, those interested in reproducibility, installations, archives… all these generations understood the readymade as an inspiration for new forms of creativity.
Duchamp was trying, in some way, to find ways of seeing the system differently in 1913. He had no objection to new artists taking new directions.

M.Z. Would you consider Fountain as a starting point for all that?

M.A. I wouldn’t say it’s the only starting point, because it wasn’t the first readymade. But it’s a special kind of readymade—it was made specifically for an exhibition, which wasn’t the case with Bicycle Wheel, Bottle Rack, or Broken Arm. Those were studio experiments, and I don’t think Duchamp intended to exhibit them. They were probably private experiments. But in 1917, he decided it was important to create a public debate around the readymade.
That’s why Fountain was submitted to the Independents Exhibition—why it was suggested for public consumption, and why the readymade entered published discourse—through personal publications.

M.Z. Do you think Duchamp was interested in denying art as a single definition?

M.A. I don’t entirely agree with that. In the 60s, he was quoted as saying he wasn’t against art at all—I’d have to find the exact quote. He wasn’t anti-art. I don’t think that was his perspective.
I think what you’re saying is that he had certain ideas, convictions, and intellectual questions that had to be tackled from the edges of visual art.
That doesn’t mean he was anti-art.

M.Z. I didn’t mean to say he was anti-art—I meant he was interested in exploring the possibility of expanding the concept of art.

M.A. That’s exactly what happened. He was aware that, after the initial shock—the association of the object with bathrooms and bodily excretion—it was no longer an original selection. Once the shock was absorbed, people could think whatever they wanted.
He believed that after the shock, the artist could spark a forward-thinking process.

M.Z. Bringing all of this together, why do you think it’s important to reflect on his work a century later—especially in contemporary art practice?

M.A. Without a doubt, Duchamp’s impact is felt everywhere you look.
Many artists are also questioning art or its purpose—and I don’t think he would have objected to that.
One thing I’ve observed is that we often talk about Duchamp—about the artist with ideas or forms in his work—and sometimes we don’t necessarily try to understand what he did during his own time: his process, and so on.
He’s alive in museums—like the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which holds the largest collection.
But Duchamp is also alive in artistic discourse, and we have to think about his relationship with ideas we’ve created nearly a century ago—and that’s not the same thing.

M.Z. Thank you so much, Matthew.