Marcel Duchamp would give a big bear hug to Maurizio Cattelan for being successful in having one of the most iconic museums in the world attach live bananas with duct tape to their wall every few days & aggravate art lovers and philistines alike. Fools, they'd both say, laughing https://twitter.com/QuibellPaul/status/1308362660833120261

The way I see it is that the existence and success of Cattelan's banana is a lesson that you may participate in the cosmic forces of karmic retribution only via a gimmick and mockery, not through pettiness, screaming, and 'revenge'. The intellectual approach

Re: Duchamp: the genius of Fountain, a piece in which he took a common urinal, turned it upside down, and displayed it in a gallery, is that he pulled the focus from the artwork itself, and liberated art itself from centuries of oil paintings of pears and landscapes, to concept

By doing So, Duchamp democratized art: opened it up to everyone, not just rich white people with money. By turning the urinal upside down he turned art itself upside down, and brought it to the forefront, where it belongs

NB What I also deeply admire about Duchamp - who is a personal hero of mine, as if my agenda isn't blatantly obvious in this thread - is that he publically retired from art, in order to play chess. What more could he say? He had transformed the language of art

Check mate