The Recurrent, Haunting Ghost

Book excerpt: "Reading about Marcel Duchamp can be hard work, unless the writer has Francis Naumann's ability to leaven imaginitive scholarship with clarity, candor, insight, and high spirits. The most influential artist of the last century caught Naumann's attention more than forty years ago, when he saw a reproduction of Duchamp's bicucle wheel mounted on a kitchen stool, and asked himself how this could be art. The question has pursued him ever since, and his consistently fresh approaches to Duchamp's work and Duchamp's life, set down in agile and jargon-free prose, make these collected essays the single most informative book you will find on the endlessly fascinating artist."--Calvin Tomkins.