Marcel Duchamp at the Age of 85: An Icon of Conceptual Photography

In 1945, Marcel Duchamp published a photographic self-portrait in the American magazine View which depicted him–according to the caption– at the age of 85. In reality he was, at the time, only 58 years old. In other words, the camera was being used as a time machine, but not, as customary, to capture a present moment, but rather to look into the future. Until now, the circumstances surrounding this early instance of the staged photograph were unknown. This book includes a recently discovered script by Friedrich Kiesler, published here for the first time, in which Kiesler describes in full detail how he assisted his friend Duchamp in styling himself as a senile artist-philosopher for the lens of New York photographer Percy Rainford. The well-known Duchamp expert Herbert Molderings interprets Duchamp’s self-portrait as an innovative, conceptual use of photography.