Curator, Michelle Kuo: Artists are always responding to other moves that other artists make, and that becomes a series of analytical moves. It becomes a dialogue, a conversation.
Curator, Ann Temkin: In this first gallery, what we see is Duchamp giving himself an education in contemporary painting that’s very rapid, from Monet to Matisse to Cézanne to Picasso. It would be like some young artist in 2026 going around to the galleries and seeing, “Oh, this is the hot new thing. Let me adapt that in my own work.” With these early paintings, Duchamp is saying, “I am a member of the avant-garde. I want to make trouble, like these artists made trouble.”
Duchamp said that he liked to use the title as another color. I think that’s a great way to think about that possibility of words interacting with paint to create a reaction in the viewer. His titles add mystery, and that remained true for the rest of his life.