A Duchamp Retrospective at MoMA Presents an Artist Who Challenged the Very Definition of Art
ARTnews reports that the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has mounted a major Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) retrospective, described as the first comprehensive North American survey of the artist in more than 50 years. Co-organized with the Philadelphia Museum of Art with assistance from the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the exhibition runs at MoMA through August 22, 2026. The article situates Duchamp’s influence on later art, citing Maurizio Cattelan’s Comedian, which sold for $120,000 at Art Basel in 2019 and later fetched $6.2 million at auction five years afterward. It also references Duchamp’s 1965 comments to Calvin Tompkins in The New Yorker about the viewer’s role and his critique of “retinal” painting.
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This story was covered in Restitution Shockwaves and Museums Under Pressure