Marcel Duchamp: The Alchemist of the Avant-Garde

Look up the word iconoclast, and you might expect to find Marcel Duchamp staring back at you. Few artists so radically challenged the assumptions of what art could be—or who could define it. With wit, provocation, and relentless experimentation, Duchamp dismantled traditional standards of skill, beauty, and authorship, ushering in a new era of artistic freedom whose impact continues to shape contemporary art.

Although his work intersected with movements such as Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, and even anticipated Pop Art, the French-American Duchamp resisted belonging to any single style. Instead, he embraced continual self-reinvention and deliberate contradiction. As he famously remarked, “I have forced myself to contradict myself in order to avoid conforming to my own taste.” From his early paintings to his revolutionary readymades—ordinary objects redefined as art—Duchamp transformed ideas into his primary medium.

This lecture by speaker Janet Mandel explores Duchamp’s most influential works, his philosophical approach to creativity, and the shockwaves his ideas sent through the art world—shockwaves that are still being felt today. Timed to coincide with a major Duchamp retrospective opening at the Museum of Modern Art on April 12, 2026, this talk offers a timely reassessment of one of the most provocative figures in modern art history.

Presenter Janet Mandel taught in New Jersey’s public schools for 32 years, the last eighteen of which were at Columbia High School in Maplewood, where she taught English, art history, and world languages and cultures. Now retired, Janet presents illustrated talks on a variety of art history topics at adult schools, libraries, museums, senior centers, community centers, and similar venues.

This program is made possible with the support of The Friends of the Livingston Public Library.