The purpose of art, according to Marcel Duchamp
What is the purpose of art? Writer James Baldwin said is it “to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.” Cesar A Cruz said it is to “comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” Picasso said art is for “washing the dust of daily life off our souls.” But, for Marcel Duchamp, a leading force in the world of abstract art, the purpose of art serves the highest duty of all.
Any discussion of meaning and purpose in connection to Duchamp feels almost contradictory. The French artist existed in the realms of Dadaism and Cubism, two schools of thought ruled by the absurd. He was interested in playing with the abstract, tearing up any semblance of meaning or understanding until it was a whole new thing.
When it comes to modern art, so many people walk into a gallery, look at the works and leave thinking, “What on earth was that all about?” Duchamp is a prime example of that. You can walk into the Tate or Centre Pompidou and come face to face with a urinal that Duchamp declared as art. Some see that as a radical and question-opening move, but to others, it’s stupid, mocking and, at the end of the day, it’s just a urinal with a signature on it.
But Duchamp, across all this world, whether it be sculptures or sounds, was interested in the idea of meaning and purpose. What is art for? What does creation mean? Where does inspiration come from, and who gets to declare the product of it as art or not art?
However, when he laid out his philosophy on the purpose of art, a grander sense of meaning and importance was laid out. “I believe that art is the only form of activity in which man assures himself to be a true individual and is capable of going beyond the animal state. I believe that art is the only form of activity in which man assures himself to be a true individual and is capable of going beyond the animal state,” he said. To him, art was the one thing that separated humans and animals, placing us on a higher plane.
That plane is somewhere mythical and ungoverned by earthly things or rules. He continued, “Art is an outlet towards regions which are not ruled by time and space,” considering the very act of gaining inspiration and creating something from nothing to be an almost divine thing. To him, that strike of an idea hitting a person is something otherworldly, as if humans have this direct line to God or the beyond through the creation of art.
“That’s my belief,” he said simply and humbly. For a man interested in messing around with meaning and purpose, contemplating big questions of who gets to declare something valuable or worthy or not, Duchamp’s philosophy honours creativity as something truly special and almost spiritual.
