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.