Kendell Geers releases book ‘Duchamp’s Endgame’

Kendell Geers’ book Duchamp’s Endgame, and accompanying exhibition The Oculist Witness (at Wilde, Basel, 10 June – 17 August 2024) reveal the extensive research that Geers conducted during this crucial year in Duchamp’s career. The findings may astonish many and even spark debate among purists. This narrative embarks on a unique journey led by an artist’s perspective, tracing the influences and inspirations across history from one artist to another, all the way back to Leonardo da Vinci.

Duchamp’s Endgame presents a nuanced view, arguing that Marcel Duchamp is less of an iconoclast and more of a classicist. It goes further, portraying him as quintessentially a French painter throughout his career. Geers clarifies a common misconception: Duchamp never outright declared "painting is dead." Instead, he loudly protested against the stupidity of painters and his task was rather "to put painting once again at the service of the mind."

The book is a story about art and the real-life, art-historical version of the Da Vinci Code. Kendell Geers describes Marcel Duchamp as “the artist I love to hate and hate to love.”