Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 3: Analog Era (1950s)

1957

Duchamp Gives His Famous Talk, The Creative Act

Event

Original ARTnews page headed The Creative Act, with two text columns and an engraved illustration of an artist and spectator.
Marcel Duchamp, “The Creative Act,” ARTnews 56, no. 4, June–July–August 1957, page 28. Marcel Duchamp / The Art Foundation. Alexina and Marcel Duchamp Papers, Philadelphia Museum of Art, MDP_B017_F001_001. Digital scan: Duchamp Research Portal; photographer not identified. Image source.

In this talk, Duchamp explained the importance of chance in the creative act. He deemed that both the artist and the participant partook in chance creation, anticipating the work of Eco several years later “The Open Work” by Umberto Eco.

“All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contributions to the creative act.”

Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random.

Sources

People

Marcel Duchamp, Umberto Eco

Movements

Chance Art, Dadaism, Participatory Art

Filed under

Ideas
audience participation, authorship, chance, Chance Art, Dadaism, participation, Participatory Art, spectatorship
People
Marcel Duchamp, Umberto Eco
Works
The Creative Act

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