Background Image
...
This Concern Which Interests Us More Than Anything Else: The Blurring Of The Distinction Between Art And Life.
-Marcel Duchamp
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

This Concern Which Interests

Marcel Duchamp
...
This Concern Which Interests Us More Than Anything Else: The Blurring Of The Distinction Between Art And Life.

Understanding the Quote: "this concern which interests us more than anything else: the blurring of..."

This quote by Marcel Duchamp reflects deeply on the theme of art. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Art, Distinction, Interest, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Marcel Duchamp interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Marcel Duchamp

Marcel Duchamp is celebrated for insightful thoughts on art and distinction. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 5
Topic
Art
Distinction
Interest
More From Marcel Duchamp
I Am Still A Victim Of Chess. It Has All The Beauty Of Art - And Much More. It Cannot Be Commercialized. Chess Is Much Purer Than Art In Its Social Position.
Beauty
Art
Chess
Society Takes What It Wants. The Artist Himself Does Not Count, Because There Is No Actual Existence For The Work Of Art. The Work Of Art Is Always Based On The Two Poles Of The Onlooker And The Maker, And The Spark That Comes From The Bipolar Action Gives Birth To Something - Like Electricity. But The Onlooker Has The Last Word, And It Is Always Posterity That Makes The Masterpiece. The Artist Should Not Concern Himself With This, Because It Has Nothing To Do With Him.
Art
Two
Giving
I Like Living, Breathing Better Than Working...my Art Is That Of Living. Each Second, Each Breath Is A Work Which Is Inscribed Nowhere, Which Is Neither Visual Nor Cerebral, It's A Sort Of Constant Euphoria.
Art
Breathing
Euphoria
Anything Is Art If An Artist Says It Is.
Art
Artist
Ifs
Possible Reality [is Obtained] By Slightly Bending Physical And Chemical Laws.
Reality
Law
Bending
The Individual, Man As A Man, Man As A Brain, If You Like, Interests Me More Than What He Makes, Because I've Noticed That Most Artists Only Repeat Themselves.
Artist
Unique
Men
This Concern Which Interests Us More Than Anything Else: The Blurring Of The Distinction Between Art And Life.
Art
Distinction
Interest
Unless A Picture Shocks, It Is Nothing.
Shock
I Wanted To Kill Art For Myself.. ..a New Thought For That Object.
Art
Wanted
Impressionism
To All Appearances, The Artist Acts Like A Mediumistic Being Who, From The Labyrinth Beyond Time And Space, Seeks His Way Out To A Clearing.
Artist
Space
Labyrinth
No, The Thing To Do Is Try To Make A Painting That Will Be Alive In Your Own Lifetime.
Artist
Trying
Alive
I've Decided That Art Is A Habit-forming Drug. That's All It Is, For The Artist, For The Collector, For Anybody Connected With It.
Art
Drug
Habit
It's The Viewer That Makes The Work.
Viewers
All Decisions In The Artistic Execution Of The Work Rest With Pure Intuition And Cannot Be Translated Into A Self-analysis.
Self
Decision
Intuition
I Am Interested In Ideas, Not Merely In Visual Products.
Creativity
Ideas
Imagination
Art Is Like A Shipwreck; It's Every Man For Himself.
Art
Men
Shipwreck
All This Twaddle, The Existence Of God, Atheism, Determinism, Liberation, Societies, Death, Etc., Are Pieces Of A Chess Game Called Language, And They Are Amusing Only If One Does Not Preoccupy Oneself With 'winning Or Losing This Game Of Chess.
Winning
Games
Chess Game
What I Have In Mind Is That Art May Be Bad, Good Or Indifferent, But, Whatever Adjective Is Used, We Must Call It Art, And Bad Art Is Still Art In The Same Way That A Bad Emotion Is Still An Emotion.
Art
Mind
Adjectives
I'm Not At All Sure That The Concept Of The Readymade Isn't The Most Important Single Idea To Come Out Of My Work.
Ideas
Important
Concepts
Can One Make Works Which Are Not Works Of 'art'?
Art
Works Of Art
I Have Drawn People's Attention To The Fact That Art Is A Mirage. A Mirage, Just Like The Oasis That Appears In The Desert. It Is Very Beautiful, Until The Moment When You Die Of Thirst, Obviously. But We Do Not Die Of Thirst In The Field Of Art. The Mirage Has Substance.
Beautiful
Art
Oasis
Since I Found That One Could Make A Case Shadow From A Three-dimensional Thing, Any Object Whatsoever - Just As The Projecting Of The Sun On The Earth Makes Two Dimensions - I Thought That By Simple Intellectual Analogy, The Fourth Dimension Could Project An Object Of Three Dimensions, Or, To Put It Another Way, Any Three-dimensional Object, Which We See Dispassionately, Is A Projection Of Something Four-dimensional, Something We Are Not Familiar With.
Simple
Two
Intellectual
It Is The Spectators Who Make The Pictures.
Spectators
I Was Interested In Ideas, Not Merely Visual Products. I Wanted To Put Painting Once Again At The Service Of The Mind.
Ideas
Mind
Painting
I Don’t Care About The Word ‘art’ Because It Has Been So Discredited. So I Want To Get Rid Of It. There Is An Unnecessary Adoration Of ‘art’ Today.
Art
Care
Want
Since The Tubes Of Paint Used By The Artist Are Manufactured And Ready Made Products We Must Conclude That All The Paintings In The World Are 'readymades Aided' And Also Works Of Assemblage.
Artist
World
Painting
Among Our Articles Of Lazy Hardware, I Recommend The Faucet That Stops Dripping When No One Is Listening To It.
Lazy
Listening
Dripping
Destruction Is Also Creation.
Creation
Destruction
Chess Players Are Madmen Of A Certain Quality, The Way The Artist Is Supposed To Be, And Isn't, In General.
Artist
Player
Quality
The Life Of An Artist Is Like The Life Of A Monk, A Lewd Monk If You Like, Very Rabelaisian. It Is An Ordination.
Artist
Serenity
Monk
If A Shadow Is A Two-dimensional Projection Of The Three-dimensional World, Then The Three-dimensional World As We Know It Is The Projection Of The Four-dimensional Universe.
Two
Shadow
Three
There Is No Solution, For There Is No Problem.
Problem
No Problem
Solutions
Do Unto Others As They Wish, But With Imagination.
Imagination
Wish
Do Unto Others
I Don't Believe In Art. I Believe In Artists.
Art
Believe
Belief
Since A Three-dimensional Object Casts A Two-dimensional Shadow, We Should Be Able To Imagine The Unknown Four-dimensional Object Whose Shadow We Are. I For My Part Am Fascinated By The Search For A One-dimensional Object That Casts No Shadow At All.
Two
Shadow
Three
The Most Interesting Thing About Artists Is How They Live
Artist
Interesting
Most Interesting
You Cannot Define Electricity. The Same Can Be Said Of Art. It Is A Kind Of Inner Current In A Human Being, Or Something Which Needs No Definition.
Art
Needs
Definitions
I Believe That A Picture, A Work Of Art, Lives And Dies Just As We Do.
Art
Believe
Dies
To All Appearances The Artist Acts Like A Mediumistic Being Who, From The Labyrinth Beyond Time And Space, Seeks His Way Out To A Clearing. If We Give The Attributes Of A Medium To The Artist, We Must Then Deny Him The State Of Consciousness On The Aesthetic Plane About What He Is Doing Or Why He Is Doing It. All This Decisions In The Artistic Execution Of The Work Rest With Pure Intuition And Cannot Be Translated Into A Self-analysis, Spoken Or Written, Or Even Thought Out.
Artist
Self
Space
My Idea Was To Chose An Object That Wouldn't Attract Me, Either By Its Beauty Or By Its Ugliness. To Find A Point Of Indifference In My Looking At It, You See
Ideas
Indifference
Objects
The Curious Thing About That Moustache And Goatee Is That When You Look At The Mona Lisa It Becomes A Man. It Is Not A Woman Disguised As A Man; It Is A Real Man, And That Was My Discovery, Without Realising It At The Time.
Real
Men
Discovery
It's Not What You See That Is Art. Art Is The Gap.
Art
Gaps
Art Is
The Life Of A Chess Master Is Much More Difficult Than That Of An Artist - Much More Depressing. An Artist Knows That Someday There'll Be Recognition And Monetary Reward, But For The Chess Master There Is Little Public Recognition And Absolutely No Hope Of Supporting Himself By His Endeavors. If Bobby Fischer Came To Me For Advice, I Certainly Would Not Discourage Him - As If Anyone Could - But I Would Try To Make It Positively Clear That He Will Never Have Any Money From Chess, Live A Monk-like Existence And Know More Rejection Than Any Artist Ever Has, Struggling To Be Known And Accepted.
Depressing
Struggle
Artist
I Thought To Discourage Aesthetics... I Threw The Bottlerack And The Urinal In Their Faces And Now They Admire Them For Their Aesthetic Beauty.
Beauty
Faces
Admire
I Was Poking Fun At Myself Most Of All.
Fun
Artist
Poking Fun
Chess Is A Sport. A Violent Sport.
Sports
Chess
Violent
Art Has Absolutely No Existence As Veracity, As Truth.
Art
Existence
Veracity
Chess Can Be Described As The Movement Of Pieces Eating One Another.
Swag
Pieces
Movement
I Feel Shame, Not For The Wrong Things I Have Done, But For The Right Things That I Have Failed To Do.
Done
Shame
Feels
Three Or Four Drops Of Height Have Nothing To Do With Savageness.
Three
Four
Height
Aesthetic Delectation Is The Danger To Be Avoided.
Danger
Aesthetic
Avoided
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 Contribution To The Creative Act.
Art
Creativity
Creative
My Art Would Be That Of Living: Each Moment, Each Breath Is A Work Inscribed Nowhere.
Art
Would Be
Moments
I Consider Painting As A Means Of Expression, Not As A Goal.
Mean
Expression
Goal
In The Last Analysis, The Artist May Shout From All The Rooftops That He Is A Genius; He Will Have To Wait For The Verdict Of Posterity.
Artist
Waiting
Analysis
The Word 'art' Interests Me Very Much. If It Comes From Sanskrit, As I've Heard, It Signifies 'making.
Art
Sanskrit
Interest
You Know Exactly What I Think Of Photography. I Would Like To See It Make People Despise Painting Until Something Else Will Make Photography Unbearable. (in A Letter To Alfred Stieglitz)
Photography
Thinking
People
Living Is More A Question Of What One Spends Than What One Makes.
Artmaking Is Making The Invisible, Visible.
Invisible
Visible
Art Is Not About Itself But The Attention We Bring To It.
Art
Attention
Art Is
Art Has The Lovely Habit Of Ruining All Artistic Theories.
Art
Lovely
Habit
In New York In 1915 I Bought At A Hardware Store A Snow Shovel On Which I Wrote In Advance Of The Broken Arm .
New York
Snow
Broken
I Think There Is A Great Deal To The Idea Of Not Doing A Thing, But That When You Do A Thing, You Don't Do It In Five Minutes Or In Five Hours, But In Five Years.
Thinking
Years
Ideas
An Abstract Painting Need In 50 Years By No Means Look "abstract" Any Longer.
Art
Mean
Years
While All Artists Are Not Chess Players, All Chess Players Are Artists.
Artist
Player
Chess
I Have Forced Myself To Contradict Myself In Order To Avoid Conforming To My Own Taste.
Art
Order
Ontology
The Only Thing That Is Not Art Is Inattention
Art
Inattention
Art Is
As Soon As We Start Putting Our Thoughts Into Words And Sentences Everything Gets Distorted, Language Is Just No Damn Good—i Use It Because I Have To, But I Don’t Put Any Trust In It. We Never Understand Each Other.
Use
Language
Damn
In The Creative Act, The Artist Goes From Intention To Realization Through A Chain Of Totally Subjective Reactions.
Creativity
Artist
Creative
In My Day Artists Wanted To Be Outcasts, Pariahs. Now They Are All Integrated Into Society
Artist
Outcast
Pariahs
The Chess Pieces Are The Block Alphabet Which Shapes Thoughts; And These Thoughts, Although Making A Visual Design On The Chessboard, Express Their Beauty Abstractly, Like A Poem
Beauty
Block
Chess Pieces
I Believe That The Artist Doesn't Know What He Does. I Attach Even More Importance To The Spectator Than To The Artist.
Believe
Artist
Doe
It's True, Of Course, Humor Is Very Important In My Life, As You Know. That's The Only Reason For Living, In Fact.
Important
Facts
Reason
The Artist Performs Only One Part Of The Creative Process. The Onlooker Completes It, And It Is The Onlooker Who Has The Last Word.
Artist
Creative
Lasts
Humor Is The Only Reason To Live.
Reason
Reason To Live
Trending Author
Tom Lehrer
W. G. Sebald
Lady Gregory
James Russell Lowell
T. Harv Eker
Hjalmar Schacht
Category
Information