Marcel Duchamp at MoMA

This episode of All of It explores the first major U.S. retrospective of Marcel Duchamp in nearly 50 years, currently on display at MoMA through August 22nd. Host Alison Stewart is joined by curators Anne Temkin and Michelle Kuo, who guide listeners through Duchamp’s revolutionary career—from his early academic paintings and controversial Nude Descending a Staircase No. 2, to his radical shift toward ready-mades like Fountain and his conceptual masterpiece The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even. The exhibition is structured chronologically to reveal how Duchamp’s iconoclastic ideas emerged from a deep foundation of technical skill and artistic ambition. Key themes include chess as a metaphor for artistic creation, the fluidity of gender through his alter ego Rose Célavis, and the centrality of ideas over craftsmanship. The show also highlights Duchamp’s enduring influence, particularly through the 1960s revival of his work, including replicas of lost pieces and the iconic Box in a Valise—a portable museum of his life’s work. The conversation underscores Duchamp’s belief that art should serve the mind, not just the eye, and that meaning lies in choice, context, and intellectual play.