Since the tubes of paint used by the artist are manufactured and ready made products we must conclude that all the paintings in the world are 'readym… - Marcel Duchamp

You were asking my opinion on your work of art, my dear Jean [= Duchamp's brother-in-law Jean Crotti, who asked Duchamp his comment on an art-work he made].. .Artists throughout the ages are like Monte Carlo gamblers and the blind lottery pulls some of them through and ruin others.. .I do not believe in painting per se – A painting is made not by the artist but by those who look at it and grant it their favors. In other words, no painters knows himself or what he is doing – There is no outward sign explaining why a Fra Angelico and a Leonardo [da Vinci] are equally 'recognized'. It all takes place at the level of our old friend luck.

My idea was to chose an object that wouldn't attract me, either by its beauty or by its ugliness. To find a point of indifference in my looking at it, you see

The spectator experiences the phenomenon of transmutation; through the change from inert matter into a work of art, an actual transubstantiation has taken place.. .All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work into contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.