Mel Chin on the Legacy of Marcel Duchamp

“He's here.” Mel Chin reflects on the impact of the boundary-breaking artist Marcel Duchamp.
Mel Chin was born in Houston, Texas and is known for the broad range of approaches in his art, including works that require multi-disciplinary, collaborative teamwork and works that enlist science as an aesthetic component to developing complex ideas.
Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) is arguably the most influential artist of the modern era. Duchamp experimented with Dadaism, Cubism, Surrealism, Op art and film, inventing the readymade, and paving the way for Pop, Conceptualism, and Minimalism. His artwork and ideas forever changed the artworld, and to some degree the world as a whole, in ways that we are still discovering. Global artists freely acknowledge that his work influences their artmaking. Inspired by Barbara and Aaron Levine’s promised gift of more than 35 works by Duchamp, the Hirshhorn invited artists to respond to the impact of this pioneer.
This video series is presented with “Marcel Duchamp: The Barbara and Aaron Levine Collection” and “It’s Art If I Say So: The Legacy of Marcel Duchamp in the Hirshhorn Collection.”