In 1964, Calvin Tomkins spent a number of afternoons interviewing Marcel Duchamp in his apartment on West 10th Street in New York. Casual yet insightful, Duchamp reveals himself as a man and an artist whose playful principles toward living freed him to make art that was as unpredictable, complex, and surprising as life itself. Those interviews have never been edited and made public, until now. The Afternoon Interviews, which includes an introductory interview with Tomkins reflecting on Duchamp as an artist, guide and friend, reintroduces the reader to key ideas of his artistic world and renews Duchamp as a vital model for a new generation of artists.
Calvin Tomkins (b. 1925),
American Art Critic
Duchamp has always been an artist I admired, he was so ahead of his times. I just love how he was always going against the grain. From his refusal of Art not just being retinal but as something that serves the mind, thereby pushing the conceptual movement, to his Boîte-en-valise, challenging society to distinguish original versus reproduction.
Massimo Casagrande