Definitively Unfinished Marcel Duchamp

The Duchamp scholars represented here are some of the leading European and American critics of their generation - a number of whom have staked out opposing territories, making for an animated critique of this artist and his work. Eric Cameron, Herbert Molderings, and Francis Naumann probe the philosophical implications of Duchamp's skepticism, eroticism and paradoxical acceptance of contradiction. William Camfield and Thierry de Duve investigate the events that led to the creation of Duchamp's infamous "Fountain".

Jean Suquet's poetic reading of the "Large Glass" appears here in English for the first time, as does Andre Gervais's voyage through Duchamp's puns, aphrosims, and wordplays. Carol James offers a fresh interpretation of Duchamp's late works as readymades. Craig Adcock and Rosalind Krauss examine to what extent scientific models explain Duchamp's art or are challenged by it, and Molly Nesbit uncovers evidence of how the gender-based teaching of drawing in the Third Republic might have nurtured Duchamp's - or Rrose Selavy's - peculiar use of mechanical drawing.